Giant Mechatronic Warriors
by schillingklaus
Summary: The robot war between Fire Wire and Quinn Pensky continues, but this time with giant robots. Only by dropping their arguments will they be able to save America.


**Giant Mechatronic Warriors**

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**Klaus Schilling**

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**Rating**

PG-13

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**Disclaimer**

This is a derivative work of _Nickelodeon_ shows and other subsequently specified quoted and paraphrased works of art I don't own.

* * *

**Abstract**

Quinn and Firewire continue their combat from _Zoey 101_: _Robot Wars_. But this time, the robots are a lot bigger.

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**Synopsis**

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**Genres**

Science Fiction, Supernatural

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**Fandoms**

The story occurs in the identified **universe** of a huge variety of current or past live action shows produced for _Nickelodeon_ channel, including, but not restricted to, _Drake & Josh_, _Victorious_, _Zoey 101_, _The iCarly Show_, _How To Rock_, _Bigtime Rush_, _Unfabulous_, _Ned__'__s Declassified School Survival Guide_, _True Jackson VP_, _Supah Ninjas_, _House Of Anubis_, _Just Jordan_, _Fred The Show_ … and makes heavy use of a variety of members of their casts.

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**Prerequisites**

Knowledge of as many _Nickelodeon_ live action fandoms as possible, especially _Drake & Josh_ and _The iCarly Show_, is truly appreciated, but, by design, rudimentary knowledge of the main characters and plot lines, as taught by the corresponding _Wikipedia_ pages, is sufficient.

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**Timeline**

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**Zoey 101**

The first two seasons cover the academic years of 2004/2005 and 2005/2006, respectively. The entrance point of the narration is right there. The first half of the third season covers 2006/2007, and the second half covers 2007/2008. The fourth season is but a nightmare of Zoë Brooks.

* * *

**Drake And Josh**

The first season and part of second season occur in 2003/2004, the reast of second season and the early third season in 2004/2005. The rest of the third season scoincides with 2005/2006. The fourth season is wholesale a nightmare by Josh Nichols.

_Zoey 101_: _Spring Break-Up_ predates _Honor Council_, but postdates _Number One Fan_.

The episode _Honor Council_ predates _Zoey 101_: _Backpacks_, while _Mindy Is Back_ postdates it. The special _Drake And Josh Go Hollywood_ coincides with _Zoey 101_: _Spring Break-Up_

* * *

**iCarly**

This show is wholesale a nightmanre by Megan Parker, dreamed some time after the end of season three of _Drake & Josh_. Carly Shay is Megan's dream self. Likewise, Crazy Steve masks as Spencer Shay, Trisha Kirby as Samantha Puckett, and Prince Gabriel as Fredward Benson. Most other characters are known to Megan from events outside the shows.

* * *

**Victorious**

This show is wholesale a nightmare of Lola Martinez by the end of season three of _Zoey 101_, identifiying Lola with Tori Vega. Most characters of the nightly horror trip are — inspite of all that — known to Lola.

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**Unfabulous**

The first two seasons, after the subtraction of a few episodes in order to fix a time problem, of this show coincide with the first season of _Zoey 101_, while the third season coincides with the second season of _Zoey 101_, and it ends when this story's narration starts.

_Drake & Josh_: _The Bet_ predates the start of _Unfabulous_.

The episode _Talent Show_ is just a nightmare of Addie Singer.

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**Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide**

The first two seasons of this show copincide with the first season of _Zoey 101_, while its third season coincides with the second season of _Zoey 101_.

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**Big Time Rush**

The canon is supposed to postdate the end of the third season of _Zoey 101_ by about one year. Most of it is to be understood as a dream of Kendall Knight.

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**True Jackson VP**

The canon of this show is supposed to start with teh academic year after third season of _Zoey 101_.

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**The Troop**

This show is a nightmare of Jake Collins, but the setting and the main characters do exist. The monsters are supposed to be creations by the geeks interested in genetic engineering.

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**Shredderrman Rules**

This movie is supposed to play during the first part of the third season of _Zoey 101_.

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**Spectacular!**

This movie is taken as a nightmare by Lola Martinez alias Tammie Dyson.

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**Just Jordan**

This show is supposed to coincide with the third season of _Zoey 101_.

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**Bucket And Skinner's Epid Adventures**

This occurs three year after teh end of season three of _Zoey 101_.

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**How To Rock**

Located three years after the end of the third season of _Zoey 101_.

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**Summary**

The combat with little robots was not enough for the kids from Pacific Coast Academy:

Inspired by some fashionable video game, Quinn Pensky and Wayne Gilbert alias Fire Wire build really big combat robots, controlled by internal pilots.

The situation escalates when a foreign despot tries to infiltrate Pacific Coast Academy and to spy the secrets: A threat for the whole nation is on the way.

Only by the way of dropping their arguments and starting to work together, the mad scientists of southern California would be able to save America.

**Couples** include especially Quinn Pensky / Wayne Gilbert

* * *

**Acknowledgments**

Piloted giant battle androids are inspired by _Insconiac_'s videogame _Ratchet And Clank_ and by some unknown party's _Pacific Rim_. Confer also amnimes of third-party owned _Gundam_ series!

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**Contents**

Chapter 1 Introduction  
1:1 Pacific Coast Academy  
1:2 Wayne Gilbert  
1:3 Quinn Pensky  
1:4 Start Of Coeducation  
1:4:1 The Reasons Of The Sponsors  
1:4:2 Troubles Between Boys And Girls  
1:5 Little Battle Robots  
1:5:1 The Exclusion Of Girls From Science Club  
1:6 Robot Clash On The Campus  
1:7 Aftermath Of The Mini-Robot Rencounter  
1:7:1 Quinn's Inappropriate Forgivenness  
1:7:2 Nicole's Decision To Leave The School  
1:7:3 Mindy Crenshaw Defeats Fire Wire's Robot  
1:8 Mindy's Vengeful Plans  
Chapter 2 Moving On Towards Bigger Robots  
2:1 The Addictions Of Dustin Brooks  
2:1:1 Candy  
2:1:2 Girls  
2:1:3 Video Games  
2:2 Wrenchman — Game Of The Year  
2:3 The Challenge Is Born  
Chapter 3 The Plans And First Attempts  
3:1 During The Summer Break  
3:1:1 Quinn In Seattle  
3:1:2 Cal Meecham  
3:1:3 Wayne Gilbert's Dreams  
3:2 Chase Matthews And His Vicious Games Of Jealousy  
3:2:1 The Crush On Zoë Brooks  
3:2:2 Accidental Flirt With Trisha Kirby  
3:2:3 Lola Martinez And The The Birds And The Bees  
3:2:4 Chase Matthews Abuses Trinidad Vega  
3:3 The First Days Of The New Academic Year  
3:3:1 Quinn Moves In With Zoë And Lola  
3:3:2 Zoë Runs Into Chase And Trina  
3:3:3 Wayne's Search For A Stable Base  
3:3:4 Logan's Basketball Problems  
3:3:5 Chase's Plan B For Jealousy  
3:4 Coco's Awkward Relationship  
3:4:1 A Miniature Plane Wreaks Havoc  
3:4:2 Another Failed Matchmaking Project  
3:5 Wayne Gilbert And The Miniature Plane  
Chapter 4 The Begin Of The Construction  
4:1 Quinn's Jealousy  
4:1:1 Second Anniversary For Mark Del Figgalo And Quinn Pensky  
4:1:2 Mark Hires A Painter Girl  
4:1:3 Quinn Runs Into Mark And Maria  
4:1:4 Quinn Builds The Central Processing Unit  
4:1:5 Quinn Asks Lola And Zoey  
4:1:6 Possible Losses By Means Of Espionage  
4:1:7 Mark's Portrait  
4:2 Tapping Logan's Resources  
4:2:1 Zoey Needs Tutoring  
4:2:2 Finding A Tutor  
4:2:3 Logan Reese And Chemistry  
4:2:4 The Library Of Logan's Grandfather  
4:2:5 The Logaminator  
4:2:6 Wayne Gilbert's Sponsors  
4:2:6:1 Mrs. Lee  
4:2:6:2 Grizzly Industries  
4:3 The Expulsion Of Vince Blake  
4:3:1 The Mean Cheater  
4:3:2 Caught In Flagrante Delicto  
4:3:3 Chase's Decision And Its Consequences  
4:3:4 (  
4:4 Sara Kyla Embarrasses Quinn Pensky  
Chapter 5 Completing The Prototypes And First Tests  
5:1 The Legend Of Charles R. Galloway  
5:1:1 Classes In National Economy  
5:1:2 The Field Trip  
5:2 Moving The Colossus  
5:2:1 Daisy And Trina: Two Star Pilots?  
5:2:2 The Locket Of Charles Galloway  
5:3 Chase's Depression  
5:3:1 The Quiet Phase Before The Storm  
5:3:2 The Death Of Chase's Grandmother  
5:4 Wayne Purchases Quinndoze  
5:5 National Science Fare  
Chapter 6 The Final Countdown  
6:1 The Old Radio  
6:1:1 Chase Wants A GO  
6:1:2 Wayne Gilbert Uses The Device  
6:2 Quinn's Battle Pilots  
6:2:1 Chase And Logan — From The Game Sphere To The Cockpit  
6:2:2 Michael Fights His Cowardice  
6:2:3 Pilot Training  
6:2:4 Wayne's Pilot Trio  
6:3 The Horror Movie From Japan And The J-Phone  
6:3:1 A Parcel From Tokyo  
6:3:2 A Fake Fire Alert  
6:4 The Critical Situation For America  
6:4:1 Shocking News From Japan  
6:4:2 Missy Robinson Intervenes  
6:5 The Deafeat Of The Chancellor  
6:5:1 The Sermon  
6:5:2 Quinn And Wayne Make Up  
6:5:3 Stars And Stripes Forever!

* * *

**Chapter 1 Introduction**

* * *

**1:1 Pacific Coast Academy**

The red hot spring sun was already burning up the hills of the southern Californian coastal hill chains. Only some gentle landward winds blew into the face of the students of the most renowned and illustrious boarding school of the extended Los Angeles area: This was the **Pacific Coast Academy**. located down by the dreamy beach of Malibu. Little did it look like the campus of a school, but everything reminded you of a typical spa.

But this apparent idyl was rather frail and treacherous. Behind the scenes, the cabals and arguments between the students were blooming like flowers on a spring meadow.

One of the most tedious rencounters was beyond any evanescent trace of a doubt that between Quinn Pensky and Wayne Gilbert, two freshmen.

* * *

**1:2 Wayne Gilbert**

**Wayne Gilbert** alias **Fire Wire** was a freak for technology, science fiction, fantasy, role playing, and graphic movels. He was especially the president of the **Pacific Coast AcademyClub For Science And Technology**, and he had been in this rank since his arrival on the campus for the start of middle school.

Basically, the club was just a farce, although Wayne Gilbert was an exorbitantly gifted electronic engineer and information scientist. But the club room was full of back issues of fantasy graphic novels of the series of _DC_ and _Marvel_.[1:1] It also hosted a lot of materials for costume plays and role playing games[1:2] for the related subjects. And indeed, the funds granted for the club were often spent for all those materials and trips to related activities throughout the greater Los Angeles area, and for this very reason, the club rooms had to be made a bastion that did not allow for outsiders to discover the very secrets of the campus.

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**1:3 Quinn Pensky**

**Quinn Pensky** was an excessively geeky girl from Seattle, the so-called emerald city in the cultural and economic heart of the state of Washington. At the age of seven, she had sworn to aim for intellectual domination of mankind,[1:3] and everyone in her way would have to be blown into oblivion. She was inventing many things in a huge variety of fields of application, but she was also intrested in promoting the theoretical aspects of science, especially quantum mechanics and general relativity.[1:4]

Only as a student of the last year of middle school did she move into the hallowed realms of Pacific Coast Academy. There was a simple reason why this was not possible any earlier: Pacific Coast Academy had been but an academy for boys-only until then.

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**1:4 Start Of Coeducation**

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**1:4:1 The Reasons Of The Sponsors**

The decision for making Pacific Coast Academy coeducative had not been a liberalising move, but, rather to the contrary, the main purpose was that of providing the school with its own cheerleading team. Originally, this activity had been performed by boys, but during the last decades, boys with this hobby were frowned upon sternly, and there were only a few outstanding examples left. It had been impossible for the school to build its own team, and this was very bad, as studies had demonstrated that the success of the greatest athletic high school teams was owed to a big deal to the strong support of cheerleaders and pep rallies. And the existing support before coeducation had been provided by extermnal cheerleaders from nearby schools, such as **Hollywood School For The Professional Performance Arts**, **Brewster High**, **Silver Springs**, **Palmwood Springs**, **James K. Polk**, **Northridge**,[1:5] and similar educational institutions. But these patched team were poorly motivated and hastily coordinated, and thus hardly efficient in any sense. The football team was of uttermost importance for Pacific Coast Academy, as it was one of the icons of the mighty sponsors who needed the publicity of a successful football team in order to make the whole enterprise of supporting a prep school of that renown really , at the beginning of the coeducational era, girls were still a minoriuty, and thus it was still possible to hire girls from other schools as cheerleaders. This would change a little later, though.

* * *

**1:4:2 Troubles Between Boys And Girls**

So, Quinn was one of the first female students at this elitarian school, along with **Zoë** Brooks, a brilliantly outstanding Mary Sue born in Louisiana,[1:6], and **Nicole Bristow**, an excessively ditzy bimbo wench from Kansas.

The coexistence of boys and girls at this school had been chock full of problems from the very get on. The ringleader of the boys was phony jerk **Logan Reese**, now also a freshman, just like Quinn and her friends. He was the som of infamous movie producer **Malcolm Reese**, the lord of ultimate blockbusters such as _Galaxy Wars_. He had always treated girls like dirt and would always do so, without any exception whatsoever, and he incited other boys into doing the same. He had been on the campus since the start of middle school already. His room mates for that period, fluff poet **Chase Matthews** and Jazz composer **Michael Barret**, were nowhere near in his league, but they were most likely to be exposed to the corrupting influence of their spoiled room mate. But even worse, Logan Reese also exerted some devastatingly bad influence on the elementary school boys, such as **Dustin Brooks**, the younger brother of Zoë. Like many other boys, the latter tried to follow Logan's example in order to increase his chances of a girlfriend, because he had got a lot of bad luck there, as we will see later down the road. This was of course not a way which overprotective Zoë Brooks wanted to see her brother to follow, and she had to intervene severely, with the help of sophomore **Tracy Baldwin**, who was also an elder sister, videlicet that of Dustin's class mate **Sandy Baldwin**.[1:7]

Already upon their arrival, Logan had made it clear that girls did not belong into the boys' club.

This was especially the case for the basketball team. Zoë Brooks, a very gifted and team-aware athlete addicted to this sport, had to fight for the girls' rights from the very beginning. She was very successful even here.[1:8]

The worst point in the fledgling history of coeducation had been a series of pranks. **Leo Bradford**, the landlord of Pacific Coast Academy, had almost seen himself forced to expel girls again, or at least Zoë Brooks who had been the ringleader of teh girls when retaliating against the boys' evil pranks, who had of course been all incited by no other than Logan Reese. Only in the last minute had he refrained from doing so.[1:9] Logan had not wanted the girls to be expelled, because he was addicted to torturing and abusing them, and thus he needed them to stay citizens of this school, which of course did not mean that he would treat them any better.

* * *

**1:5 Little Battle Robots**

* * *

**1:5:1 The Exclusion Of Girls From Science Club**

Being a mad scientist, Quinn Pensky wanted to jon the club for science and technology of this school as well, but she had not been admitted to.

Wayne had simply excluded girls, although this was definitely not the true reason. He had just copied Logan Reese's strategy of excluding girls from the basketball team. Thus he claimed, although he knew that he was only talking nonsesnse, that girls were by no means suited for scientific research, both theoretical and experimental.

The rule book of Pacific Coast Academy was still not adapted to the times of coeducation, and thus it used the words _he_, _him_, _his_, and so on even in many places where it was no longer appropriate to do so.

But Fire Wire's real goal was that of keeping Quinn, or everyone else for that matter, away from the abusive secret of the club which was more of a tam of science fiction freaks than of scientists.

Along with his pals Neil Wosniacki,[1:10] Andrew Bernstein,[1:11] and **Doty Reagan**,[1:12] Wayne had enrolled for a contest for toddler-sized war robots. Those were operated by a student by the way of a remote controlling device, and they fought each other to the death.

* * *

**1:6 Robot Clash On The Campus**

When Zoë Brooks, Nicole Bristow, Chase Matthews, Michael Barret, and Logan Reese spotted Wayne and his henchmen working on their robots, they were treated in an arrogant manner, thus Zoey wanted to have her own robot and destroy Wayne's with it. These five teenagers were accompanied by Latino drama queen **Gloria Victoria de la Vega y Martinez** alias Lola, who had joined Pacific Coast Academy only at the begining of the second coeducational year. Zoey and her gang were — actually false — friends of Quinn Pensky, and so they wanted Quinnto build the machine for her.

This worked out well until Logan Reese insulted Quinn, as was his usual habit, had always been, and would always be, and then she left the team. Upon Chase's recommendation, Zoeë hired **Miles Brody**,[1:13] the ultimate nerd of Pacific Coast Academy, who was living in a hole in the campus library. But the price was excessively high: The meganerd require a date with bubbly bimbo Nicole Bristow. Zoë Brooks gave in and sold her best friend forever — falsely so-called. Alas, the robot built by Miles Brody was too feeble to withstand that of Wayne Gilbert.

But Quinn had also taken offense from Wayne's diminution of her intelligence and dignity. And she had completed her own robot, anyways. It was much smaller than that of Fire Wire and his henchmen, but it obliterated teh same device in no time by the way of using a built-in photon cannon. Firewire was now consternated, as he had only laughed about Quinn's micro robot.

* * *

**1:7 Aftermath Of The Mini-Robot Rencounter**

* * *

**1:7:1 Quinn's Inappropriate Forgivenness**

Unfortunately, Quinn Pensky committed one huge and hardly reversuible mistake by making up with Zoey and the gang again, even with ultrajerk Loga Reese, something that should never have happened andt that would probably be tantamount to sealing her own doom.

Nicole Bristow, on the other hand, was not about to forgive Zoë the inappropriate treason of selling her like a cheap slave to one disgusting dweeb like Miles Brody, even if only for a week. Sure, she was now up to feigning for the rest of the academic year that she was still the best friend of Zoë and Lola, but this was just some cheap masquerade.

* * *

**1:7:2 Nicole's Decision To Leave The School**

Indeed, Lola had once fooled Nicole by means of acting when she was totally new at Pacific Coast Academy: She feigned to be an obsessive goth girl like her eternal arch nemesis **Jade West** from Hollywood School For The Professional Performance Arts. So, while feigning that everything was OK between her and Zoë, she was secure in the knowledge that she did not want to stay any longer at this school, and she would transfer after the end of the academic year to nearby Eastridge Prep School for was not easy for Nicole to convince her parents: She was definitely not hard to get distracted by cute boys, with whom she was obsessed, and she was already treated by a shrink, **Leonard Lowe**.[1:14], who would support her decision.

* * *

**1:7:3 Mindy Crenshaw Defeats Fire Wire's Robot**

Losing the campus-internal duel to Quinn Pensky and her gnome of a robot was of course by definitely no means a good omen for the prospects of Wayne Gilbert's ambitions of winning the robot league.

Indeed, the opponents were all stronger, although they were not necessarilysmarter than Fire Wire, and they were not extremely popular at their respective schools, either.

Thus Wayne's poor excuse of a battle robot was destroyed even faster by that of **Melinda Crenshaw**, a mad teenage scientist from San Diego. The girl had got an even bigger photon cannon, and there was no chance for the robot of the tea from Pacific Coast Academy. Wayne was now thinking seriously about retiring from the whole business of electronic engineering and information science. But simpley giving up was not easy for him, either.

* * *

**1:8 Mindy's Vengeful Plans**

Mindy was hell bent on doing more damage to Pacific Coast Academy, by the way. She would have preferred to destroy others rather than Fire Wire, and she was really disappointed because she had not faced Quinn pensky and her friend Zoë Brooks. A year ago, she had been expelled from her old school, **Belleview**, and enrolled at Pacific Coast Academy, using a fake name. Here she had tried to plagiarise Zoë's artistic designs of backpacks.[1:15] Melinda hated Zoë Brooks to no end, because the blond Mary Sue was some sort of the president of the fangirls of **Drake Parker**. a teenage rock idol from San Diego that had once give a concert on the campus of Pacific Coast Academy, organised by Zoë Brooks.[1:16] Mindy had not got away with it and was sent back to San Diego, but she was still up to vindicating her bad days on this campus. One day — or so she swore — she would destroy the whole campus along with the face of the ultimate dream girl. She was also up to destroying the ambitions of Quinn Pensky, her closes competitor in her quest of ruling over the whole the world by means of science and technology. While here on the campus, Mindy had sabotaged one of Quinn's biological experiments. Besides industrial automatisation, Quinn was also plainly interested in genetic engineering, another endeavour she shared with Mindy. She had genetically manipulated bananas into producing hybrid fruits, but down to Mindy, all that had gone into the wrong direction. Yet this was just the very start.

* * *

**Chapter 2 Moving On Towards Bigger Robots**

* * *

**2:1 The Addictions Of Dustin Brooks**

* * *

**2:1:1 Candy**

Dustin Brooks was basically interested in three things: Girls, candy, and video games. Yet he was the best student of his classes, both in the academic and the athletic subjects.

His exorbitant consumption of candy were the reason why he was often low on money.[2:1] Unfortunately, his elder sister was rigorously opposed to his excessive consumption of candy.

And of course it was neither good for his teeth nor for his metabolism, or so imagined Zoë.

Most candy on this campus were made with corn sugar that was imported from Kanas. Cane sugar was especially frowned upon by **Schneider's Bakery**, the main provider of the students concerning sweet pastry. The main sourse for mais sugar was teh company of Nicole's parents, who also used them in order to sweeten the juices and other softdrinks they sold, here in California by the way of franchising, their partner being Blix Softdrinks, the greatest vendor in that branch of business along the whole Pacific coast.

By restricting Dustion's consumption of candy, Zoë also ruined the business of Nicole's faily, which was another reason for the fledgling hostility of Nicole towards Zoey.

* * *

**2:1:2 Girls**

With girls, Dustin Brooks was even less lucky. His first half of a crush was **Wendy Gellar**,[2:2] a class mate who had made it to Pacific Coast Academy at the begin of te just ending academic year. But she only laughed about him, as she was not into little boys at all. Her main crush was no other than superstar and megajerk Drake Parker, who had already broken her heart several times, but this did not force Wendy to give up.

A much tougher nut was one **Trisha Kirby**,[2:3] an excessively evil seductress that had been on the campus for probation only. Trisha had abused him mercilessly duting chemistry classes. Zoë Brooks had been rigorously opposed to this relationship, and she had intrigued successfully in order to tear them apart again.

And then there was Sandy Baldwin, the most recent interest of Dustin Brooks. Once more, Zoë Brooks had schemed, but this time the other way round: She and Tracy Baldwin had secretly hooked up Dustin and Sandy, because they deemed it a god idea and an additional opportunity to contol their respective little siblings a lot better. At the same time, they had taught Logan a hard lesson for trying to corrupt and subvert the education of the tweens.

But once Dustin noticed what was going on, he separated again from Sandy, and not because of having troubles with her, but because he did not want Zoë to tell him whom to date, be it directly or by the way of mischievous ploys.

* * *

**2:1:3 Video Games**

Thus his last passion remained: He was in for a good video game enery time a day, and all night long.

The latest brilliant star in the welkin of electronic game environments was certainly the infamous **Game Sphere**[2:4] from electronic colosses **Pentendo**[2:5] and **Pear Electronics**. It was totally easy getting addicted to these.

His range of preferred games was incredibly huge: Adventure, action, fantasy, role play, strategy ... summing it up: There was hardly a game that could have failed to awaken his slumbering interest.

Unfortunately, he did not have a game sphere on his own, but on a campus like that of Pacific Coast Academy, it was not really impossible to find someone or something with an access to a game sphere, if you were looking closely.

At the beginning of the academic year that was now about to end, Logan Reese had built a huge high-technology entertainment system into the lounge of the boys' dormitoru block[2:6] containing a game sphere, and Dustin had kept on powerplaying for hours, untill finally the electric supply of the whole campus broke down for the rest of the night. Dustin was still in an excessively stuinky mood because the power failure had occurred in the very last minute before making it to the ultimate level of the arcade-style game, and he swored thousand menaces of vindication to come upon this cursed power failure.

At the same time, it had become clear that Pacific Coast Academy needed desperately some new kind of power supply system, as the old wone was horribly frail and irreliable. Of course, with geniuses like Quinn Pensky and Wayne Gilbert, there should not have been too much of a problem, but as the house was divided among itself, it would impossible for it to keep on standing for more than just a nick of time.

Little did either of them know that not far away in San Diego, Mindy Crenshaw was working actively on some diabolic device with the interesting ability of both solving the power problems of Pacific Coast Academy, and to destroy this illustrious institution and make it vanish from the face of this thoroughly downtrotten planet.

* * *

**2:2 Wrenchman — Game Of The Year**

Dustin had to think thrice about te question what video games to purchase or to borrow, as his bucks were still limited.

This time around, he had blown his last bucks on the new game of the year: _Wrenchman_: A video game featuring an engineer that was also some sort of a warrior for justice and freedon, using a wrech as his main weapon.[2:7] But this superhero had got a metal companion, a little robot about as big as the ones used by Wayne Gilbert in the deadly showdowns of the robot war league. Yet, on occasions, this toddler-sized guy transformed into a really big battle robot what was controlled by the wrench-swinging hero sitting in a cockpit in the back of the tin giant.

Dustin was glad that he had chosen this game, and he would have loved to play it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, yet Zoë did not let him. Of course, there were still classes for him to attend.

The play station and game sphere established by Logan Reese was now illegal, and it was thus no longer possible for Dustin to use it. And thus he needed a new one, but he had already blown all of his dollars on the video game.

Fortunately, Wayne Gilbert was here in order to build a game sphere from scratch, using some random junk found in the action week of a nearby Pear shop. Dustin talked a lot about the game while he was waiting impatiently for the completion of the game sphere. THis way, he reminded Wayne a few time of the defeat of his own little robot. But, on the other hand, the giant tin warrior was exactly what inspired Fire Wire:

**_"_**  
OK, Quinn may have defeated me with her little baby robot.

But what when it comes to really big ones?  
**_"_**

Wayne was in particular fascinated by wrenchman's qualities that made him similar to some of the superheroes of his favourite series of graphic novels.

* * *

**2:3 The Challenge Is Born**

The academic year was all but one, and Wayne Gilbert crossed the way of his rival Quin Pensky once again.

The geek princess from Seattle wanted to know whether the freaky creep had finally seen that girls like Quinn were the superior scientists, and not a bunch of guys that cackled upon each occasion.

But Wayne just laughed about it. "You girls are able-minded enough to build baby robots. But there is no wat for you to construct really big ones." He explained what he kbew from the tin giants from _Wrenchman_.

Quinn sighed. Of course she deemed herself capable of such a thing, but she did not really want to. In addition, she knew that she would need the help of the gang of Zoë Brooks for lots of henchman work. But, on the other hand, by turning down the challenge, she would have looked like admitting that she did not possess the necessary abilities for ruling over the world by the way of using her most impressive intelligence wisely for the purpose of the construction of giant mechatronic warriors in order to stomp any resistance to goo. Thus inspite of any initial reluctance, Quinn Pensky agreed on the challenge, and she was looking forward to busting Wayne's mech warrior with her own, and to roll over and to bring down anything in her way.

Quin had to give up on a few other research projects, though. For example, she was looking for a power drink, sponsored by Blix Softdrinks. Her research on the banapple shrub had not been successful, thus she had experimented with new hybrid fruits from genetically manipulated fruit-bearing plants. Her current result was **Frazz**, an overpowered drink of blue colour.[2:8] But this was too strong for the purposes of Blix, and thus she would have to remix again. She was already thinking about honey as a new ingredient, using it both as an aromatiser, and as a sweetener replacing corn syrup from Nicole's not-so-beloved Kansas. But she would have had to cultivate her own new race of honey bees,[2:9] and this in her dormitory room, because Wayne was sure not going to open the laboratories of the school's science club for her purposes. She had got her own laboratory in her dormitory room, because she was not allowed to the official school laboratories, and this was no good for many a research project. The same was valid for her necessary experiments with a new sort of bacteria[2:10] which she would have had to cultivate in order to ferment the ingredients.

The two mad engineers agreed on two years for planning and building such a robot, and then, by the end of their junior year, to release the mechatronic beasts upon one another. Of course, she needed to keep her plans a sectret, although this was not gpoi ng to be easy, given that an adult mechatronic warrior was certainly hard to hide, even harder than her favourite pet, **Otis the alpaca**.[2:11]

Thus Quinn was now already ready to return to her hometown, the emerald city, in order to start planning in her own dark and lonely chamber.

Wayne was not sure whether he could trust his pals Neil, Andrew, and Doty, though, or whther he needed to hire other henchmen in order to start his projects. But he better hurried up, or else ...

* * *

**Chapter 3 The Plans And First Attempts**

* * *

**3:1 During The Summer Break**

* * *

**3:1:1 Quinn In Seattle**

Fire Wire thought Quinn out of the way during the summer break. His impression of anything outside California was that of a desert devoid of civilisation, and thus not allowing Quinn to do any research.

But this cliche of Californian superiority was no longer valid, especially not in Seattle, the new metropole of advanced technology that was heaviliy assaulting the cultural hegemony of Los Angeles and of New York City.

The theory of controlling a huge mechatronic warrior from within an internal cockpit did not provide any difficulty for someone like Quinn who had already planned space shuttles, which got unfortunately not yet accepted by the responsible **National Aeronautic And Space Administration**.

Quinn did not waste her time with video games and cartoon figures, and she tried to get straight to the point planning the giant mech warriors. But it was clear for her that she needed materials that were hard to get at, both in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

But there was a way out. This was of course not the first time around that she needed materials and devices that she was not able to provide herself. And in California, where she would be during the academic year, she knew one reliable source.

* * *

**3:1:2 Cal Meecham**

There was one current graduate from **California Institute For Technology**, the leading school for future engineers and scientists in California, who had often provided Quinn Pensky with necessary materials for her numerous experiments, especially with radioactive materials like uranium and plutonium.[3:1] And he had not only done so to the geek princess of Seattle, but also to genius avenger Melinda Crenshaw in San Diego.

This guy had not got a name, or a place to come from, but he would later on be referred to as **Cal Meecham**,[3:2] because Wayne Gilbert knew a scientist of that name from one of his favourite works of science fiction.

But Cal did not only provide Quinn Pensky with the required stuff — no way, he also helped Melinda Crenshaw here and there. But neither Quinn nor Mindy knew that their respective arch rival was also supported by Cal Meecham.

* * *

**3:1:3 Wayne Gilbert's Dreams**

Fire Wire dreamed a lot of being a super hero. When he was much younger, his spurce of inspiration were martial artists of the eastern zen or tao based schools, as seen in both animated cartoons and in all those martial mnovies of the seventies.[3:3] Of course, as a freaky nerd, he was nowhere near enough in command of his physical skills to master any of the martial arts sufficiently, and thus he had turned embarrassed by his former wish to be a martial superhero. But his goals had shifted into a different direction: Having seen the vanity of teh flesh, he knew that he needed to become a superhero of the mind, and thus the whole parade of fantasy role playing games and graphic superhero novels had been foraged for inspirations. Wayne was convinced that believing in the powers of the weird heroes was sooner or later helping him to become one. And of course, science fiction and superhero dramas were chock full of extreme superheroes and supervillains of a variety of kinds, including those based on brute force, arcane powers, and superior intellect. Wayne Gilbert's favourite was now a certain **Doctor von Doom**[3:4] from the _Marvel_ series.

But this of course did not mean that it was possible for him to achieve this goal by the way of its mere visualisation. This was just an aid for keeping himself focussed on the target.

* * *

**3:2 Chase Matthews And His Vicious Games Of Jealousy**

* * *

**3:2:1 The Crush On Zoë Brooks**

When the girls had arrived for the first time on the campus, Chase had spotted Zoë Brooks, and steered his bicycle straight into some flag staff. For almost two years now, he had kept on thirsting for the blond Mary Sue, and although many of his fellow pupils, especially malevolent jerk Logan Reese, he had failed admitting to this. Likewise, Zoey had not yet understood what was going on.

Chase knew that after two years, he should have made it, but he had not come anywhere near close. And then, after lots of reluctance, he had sent a message to Zoë Brooks, fessing up. But the mobiile telecommunication device of the charming young lady had slipped into the campus fountain, gettinhg all saved messages destroyed for good.[3:5] Really for good? At least everyone seemed to have thought so, but little did they know that some genius would be able to restore the obviously lost message. But this would occure only months later.

In any case, Chase believed that teh direct way of fessing up was bad, The gods had told him so, by sending an earthquake that made the mobile telephone slip into the water. And Chase was thoroughly disheartened. But there was some mean trick left for him: The good old jealousmaker.

* * *

**3:2:2 Accidental Flirt With Trisha Kirby**

Aforementioned bad girl Trisha Kirby had been the first tools of Chase in order to provoke Zoë's jealousy. But this was a mere accident. When he had tried to dissuade Trisha from dating Dustin, which Chase had done upon the explicit command of the charming Mary Sue, he had been successful, but thereupon Trisha had started claiming him as her new boyfriend, which was definitely not what Zoey and Chase had been up to.

Not much later, Trisha dropped Chase again. Dustin had challenged Chase in a duel, and he had slammed him mercilessly to the ground in some charge attack. Trisha would have taken back Dustin, but the latter was no longer interested, because he hated being cheated on.

So, although this had been accidental, Chase had started sensing some sort of fits of jealousy in Zoë Brooks, or at least he believed that this had been the case. And by this experience, he felt encouraged to repeart this game, until it was perfected.

* * *

**3:2:3 Lola Martinez And The The Birds And The Bees**

The next attempt to provoke the jealousy of Zoë Brooks involved the hiot Latino actress Lola Martinez, room mate of Zoë Brooks. This time, it was a soprt of mutial abuse, though.

Not only did Chase abuse Lola for his aforementioned purpose, but the drama queen also abused Chase in order to hone her acting skills for any of all those pointless fluff comedied she wanted to star in. It was of course no problem for Lola to make out on the screen with some excessively hot actor. He main targets amomng the current teenage stars were **Beck Oliver**, a Canadian future movie star studying at nearby **Hollywood School For The Professional Performance Arts**, and Spencer Danforth,[3:6], another student from that perfect academy for fledgling Hollywood stars. But Lola was not always in a position allowing her to choose whom to make out with in front of the camera. Sometimes the very script required a dweeb in a main rôle, and then Lola needed to be prepared for it, because puking in front of tehg camera was never a good option.

Bushy Chase Matthews was not the one and only uncomely guy on the campus, as we had seen earlier up the road. Ther were Wayne Gilbert, Miles Brody, and also Quinn's ugly boyfriend **Mark Del Figgalo**. But in the end, Lola's choice targeted Chase, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this story.

In order to hide her proper intentions, Lola disguised the whole thing as tutoring by pretending that she needed desperate help in order to be able to pass her classes in biology.[3:7] During the course of the tutoring project, Lola and Chase had discovered that this had not been a good idea for making Zoë jealous, because the two girls had been friends. Thus the whole project was given up in the middle of the course.

Zoë had once more wondered a lot aboout Chase and Lola, and she knew very well that the bushy sweeb and the Latino beauty were a totally absurd and perverse mismatch of the diabolic kind. Like in the case of Chase and Trisha, she was not jealous, she just wondered about the absurdities into which Chase kept on sliding aimlessly.

But Chase understood it that Zoë had started turning even a bity more jealous, and he had learned a few things that he would have to think about whe n planning the next attempt of that sort.

* * *

**3:2:4 Chase Matthews Abuses Trinidad Vega**

So, this summer was the start of Chase Matthews's ultimate attempt of making the blond Mary Sue as jealous as can be. And Lola Martinez was even helping him here, albeit in a different manner than during the previous attempt. Lola's elder sister **Trinidad Rebecca de la Vega y Martinez**[3:8] wanted to be a future star as well, albeit rather as a supermodel and a dancer than an actress.

Chase Matthews was an aspiring playwrite. This had been become obvious during the last two years, especially when writing the script for a school play.[3:9] Using someone for jealous was always a form of acting, and thus Chase was better off writing a script in advance for such a dangerous scene.

And this was the plan: Trina would pretend to be Chase's girlfriend from his hometown. Zoë was supposed to stumble intp Chase and Rebecca alias Trina making out in his dormitory room. This should work perfectly, and a lot better than seeing Chase with any of Zoë's friends or otherwise known girls.

Even Quinn was working together with Lola and Chase, because she was tired of the situation between the bushy dork and the brilliant Mary Sue, Lola's and Quinn;s task was that of getting Zoë carefully and subtly to show up in the right moment and to surprise Chase and Trina in some utterly foul and dirty situation.

* * *

**3:3 The First Days Of The New Academic Year**

* * *

**3:3:1 Quinn Moves In With Zoë And Lola**

For Quinn, the new year started with a special shock: She was assigned to a room that did not exist. This was the typical result of the chaios that had prevailed in the administration of Pacific Coast Academy during the previous months. Usually, elderly spinster **Burvich**[3:10] was in charge with assigning the dormitory rooms, but she had extended her summer vacations without prior notification. For that reason, messy and perpetually distraught dormitory adviser **Coco Wexler** had been forced to take care of this occasionally complicated task — complicated at least for a dumb wench who had been employed only for the reason of being incredibly cheap. Once more, the fault was that of Leo Bradford who did not want to invest more than absolutely necessary into the accomodation of girls at Pacific Coast Academy. So Coco had confused the size of her brassière's cups with the dormitory room numbers, and this caused the whole trouble.

The messy attitude and the poor coordination of the school's administration, including **Dean Carl Rivers**,[3:11] the headmaster of four years, was not necessarily a bad thing in general. This had allowed her to keep her small pets a secret for many a month, and there were hardly any traces of this to change. Inother words, there was even the possibility of starting the project somewhere on the campus. This would only be a temporary solution, but it was a better start than no place at all.

On the other hand, Quinn still needed a place to stay. And as Nicole Bristow had broken up for good with Zoë Brooks, just as insinuated a little earlier up teh road, there was now a free spot in the dormitory room of the Mary Sue and the drama queen: **101 Brenner Hall**. Quinn was glad when she was assigned this one room. This was yet another mistake, just as having forgiven those girls their mean treason before the toddler robot battle, when they had not rebuked Logan for calling Quinn crazy. But Quinn was still assuming that she needed to convince those pathetic ignorants a lot harder of her own intellectual superiority.

Quinn had bought a few semiconductor-based items for the start of the construction of the great warrior robot. As expected, Lola was scared by them, as she did not k now what they would be good for. Quinn called some of the little things _chips_, but Lola was dumb enough to wonder whther they were Mexican nachos or British potato crisps, and she actually tried to eat one of them in order to find out. Fortunately, Zoë Brooks held her back.

* * *

**3:3:2 Zoë Runs Into Chase And Trina**

The plot of Chase and Lola had worked out sufficiently to get Zoë Brooks to stumble right into Chase and Trinidad. But — definitely nowhere near according to the plans of Lola and Chase — the blond Mary Sue did not explode into microscopic fragments for jealousy.

Alas, Zoë thought the situation disgusting, because a hot Latino girl like Trinidad would usually not make out with an uncomely dweeb like Chase Matthews. But in the end, she expressed that she was glad that Chase had found a girlfriend that soon.

Chase was disappointed, but he did not give up that easily, because Quinn and Lola had got a secondary plan, although they were still reluctant to realise it.

* * *

**3:3:3 Wayne's Search For A Stable Base**

Wayne Gilbert was still looking for a suitable location in order to establish a base for the production and completion of his mechatronic warrior. He could still not trust his pals, and even less any other student on the campus.

For that avail, he needed to ook a bit outside,. Fortunately, the county of Los Angeles was not just the metropolitan area of thegiant city whose entertainment industry stomped everything to goo that even dared to try to compete. But teh county was also filled with creeks and canyons that few people dreamed of ever looking at, such as **Shadow Creek**[3:12] and **Redstone Gulch**.[3:13] And according to one of Wayne Gilbert's favourite superheroes, a certain **Dr. Doom** from the _Marvel Series_, the desert was the right place to withdraw to.[3:14] For that reason, he was studying the geography of the nearby wastelands for a place where they would not discover his giant secret, and his favourite location was Redstone Gulch, a place that appeared cursed in the legends roaming Pacific Coast Academy, as you will see again later down the road. He was up to exploring the area soon on hi own, but was that even possible?

* * *

**3:3:4 Logan's Basketball Problems**

Inepot basketball teacher **Coach Keller**[3:15] had gathered the studented that were interested in joining this year's basketball team of Pacific Coast Academy. The pressure was high, as the team needed to compete with the football team for the sponsors' attention, and the latter squad was about to improve rapidly, due to the improved quarterback **Vincent Blake**.

Logan had been one of the most reliable basketball players during middle school and the freshman year, but now he was in trouble deep: He failed in all his free throw attempts, and this caused Keller to exclude him for a match. He would have to find back his former stability in order to get readmitted.

Now Quinn Pensky offered Logan Reese to teach him to score better with free throws. She was a fairly bad athlete, and thus it sounded like a bad joke. But Zoë and Lola told Logan to give it a chance.

Quinn Pensky chased him across the pavement with a little chicken robot that he had to catch, then she fired volleys of tennis balls upon him in order to mak him catch them, and then she forced him to cross the campus, dressed with a funny gown. None of this had helped his free throws, although they trained important aspects of the basketball game, and of many other athletic disciplines. And then she reminded him of tyhe correct posture for free throws, which worked like a charm.

Logan Reese was saved from utter humiliation, and now he owed Quinn, whom he still considered as a spaz, a lot. Quinn knew already what she wanted in return: The money for building the mechatronic giant warrior. But she needed to wait for the right moment for asking. This moment would come — sooner or later!

* * *

**3:3:5 Chase's Plan B For Jealousy**

Now it was the time for the alternative plan. Chase sent Trinidad Rebecca Vega into Zoë's room, and the Lationo topmodel told the blond Mary Suue to keep her fingers away from Chse Matthews, and to never ever dare to talk to him again.

Zoey had stupifdly started liking Chase's new albeit faked and feint girlfriend, and thus she was now even more consternated. But she was up to living by that rule, becasue she thought that Trina meant so much to Chase.

And then the bushy dweeb broke up with Trina, in order to trick Zoë into believing that he had sacrificed his relationship just for Zoë's sake. This, or so he hoped, would finally persuade Zoë to date him.

Oh well, this move was a failure as well. Zoë just treated Chase as a good friend, as she had done for two years already, and she did not make him understand that this would ever change.

At least the whole treason and intrigue did not get reveiled, for otherwise there would have been certainly some major troule on the campus of Pacific Coast Academy, turmoil involving Zoë Brooks, Chase Matthews, Quinn Pensky, and Lola Martinez.

So, the whole plan was a failure, but this did not mean that Trina was now all but forgotten. Of course the busty Latino miodel would never have seriously considered committing anything near the aforementioned perversities with Chase Matthews, if she had not been promised a due recompensation. She was still utterly disgusted, and this cried for some payment. More precisely, Trinidad expected Chase to write her a musical for her as the star, one that really made her shine and stand in the very centre of all public attention.

Yet Chase was by absolutely no means willing to pay for Trinidad's service, because the whole plan had gone awry. He had thought that he would only have to pay in the case of a successful farce, not in the case of this pointless outcome.

Trinidad was not going to give in, though, and she would sooner or later get bsck at Chase for his broken deal.

Still, Trinidad was not interested in reveiling the deal to Zoë, but it was obvious that this secret was now floating like the infamous sword of Damocles above the shrubbery-covered skull of Chase Matthews, and sooner or later, there would be a chance of a leak in the outer walls.

* * *

**3:4 Coco's Awkward Relationship**

* * *

**3:4:1 A Miniature Plane Wreaks Havoc**

Dustin Brooks and some of his class pals, such as long term dormitory mate **Jack Ross**[3:16] were playing with a model plane they had found at the beginning of the academic year in some huge trash bin. Unfortunately, the system of the miniature aircraft appeared to be broken in a way the middle school kids did not quite understand.

Fortunately, Quinn Pensky came along on the downtrotten campus path, and she noticed thatthe kids were in trouble because of some broken plane. Dustin wanted her to repair the machine, as he deemed her extremely competent. Of course Quinn knew that she was even able to repair a propr plane, or to build one from scratch, or even a space shuttle, or ... a piloted mechatronic warrior. Thus she did not hesitate and accept Dustin's tiny challenge. She had always got a few tools hidden in the most uncommon places, and this made it possible for her to patch the baby aircraft of site.

Dustin and his friends thanked the geek princess, and then they got the plane started. But quinn had just rewired the whole engine in a way that sacrificed navigability for the sake of propulsion. As a consequence, the plane flew an uncontrollable straight line and could not be steered correctly. The catastrophe was thus inevitable: The aircraft flew straight into the face of Dean Rivers, breaking his nose and forcing him to take a break of a few weeks. This was of course not what Dustin understood as a demonstration of engineering genius.

Quinn should have seen immediately that mistakes like this one, when applied to huge mechatronic warriors instead of miniature aircrafts, would have consequences of a much higher levels. But her blazing enthusiasm was not curbed by such a puny incident, and the next steps of her plan went on. Yet she needed to share it with someone sooner or later in order to bring on the project.

Dustin had not been caught for steering teh plane accidentally into the headmaster's face, or else he would have encountered evn more serious troubles.

* * *

**3:4:2 Another Failed Matchmaking Project**

After having tried in utter to match Zoë Brooks and Chase Matthews, using Trinidad Vega, Quinn Pensky and Lola Martinez were onece more busy in that branch. But this time, Zoë worked along with them instead of being their victim.

This time, it was about aforementioned inept dormitory adviser Coco Wexler. Once again, the school administration should never have hired her, or at least fired right now, as she was just cheap and only a source of endless troubles. The main source, on top of her messy attitude, was her abusive boyfriend **Carl Bubba**.[3:17] The latter was dangerous jock and an inept coack of the school's absolutely ridiculous baseball team.

Thus Quinn, Lola, and Zoey decided to match Coco with **Brian Taylor**,[3:18] the headmaster who had been sent forth by executive chairman **Garth Burman**[3:19] as a substitute for temporarily disabled Dean Carl Rivers.

Zoë Brooks was still not aware of the fact that she had recently been the victim of another matching actions by her excessively hysterical room-mates, for otherwise she would have wreaked insane havoc upon them.

Anyways, with or without Zoë's help, Coco was absolutely unsuited for a noble guy like Brian Taylor, and this action was yet another catastrophe.

Quinn Pensky was thus definitely not disheartened enough by her first failure of a matching project to refrain from a scond one just a bit later, and this also emphasises that she was not discouraged from her attempts of building the big mechatronic soldiers, no matter what, just because of the crash of the miniature plane.

Neither broken hearts nor broken bones would be able to stop her.

* * *

**3:5 Wayne Gilbert And The Miniature Plane**

So we have seen that Quinn's efforts concerning the restauration of the functionality of Dustin Brooks's miniature plane had gone awry. But this did not mean that Dustin was giving up on his little toy. The reason was the fact that he wanted to use it in order to write messages into the sky, although he was not yet sure how that technology worked.

Dustin did not trust Quinn pensky any longer, so he addressed the next option: Wayne Gilbert alias Fire Wire.

Usually, the latter would have been too busy and arrogant in order to take a look at Dustin's problem right on site, but this time, the situation was a bit different:

Wayne was planning and sketching the servomechanical system of his mega battle android. The little miniature plane had got one as well, as it was really necessary for artists using those kind of tiny vehicles for demonstrations and even competitions. Granted, this one was fairly simple, butin principle closely related, and not too much different, from the servemechanism controlling many of the movements of the huge robot. Unbeknownst to Dustin and his friends, he was up to using this as an opportunity for implementing and testing the future servimechanical system of his tin giant before building it. And thus he gladly accepted Dustin's mandate.

* * *

**Chapter 4 The Begin Of The Construction**

* * *

**4:1 Quinn's Jealousy**

* * *

**4:1:1 Second Anniversary For Mark Del Figgalo And Quinn Pensky**

Quinn Pensky and Mark Del Figgalo had been dating for almost two years already. Mark was an extreme dork, obsessed with collecting strange stones and making sculptures of them. For their second anniversary, he was up to something special: he wanted to gift his girlfriend a picture of himself.

It was already weird how Mark and Quinn had come together in the first place, and in the end more of an accident, at least on Mark's side: He had already been in an excessively abusive relationship with **Courtney Simmons**[4:1] yet too stubborn to trash her. Quinn had been clueless about this when targetting Mark, and so had been Zoë Brooks whose support was needed.

By the way, Courtney was not a student of Pacific Coast Academy, but of nearby Northridge Academy For Girls, and she had never liked Mark, she was just a spy sent forth by the administration of said girl school in order to ruin the school that had broken a peace that had lasted already for several decades by going coeducative.

* * *

**4:1:2 Mark Hires A Painter Girl**

Of course it was not easy for Mark to paint a portrait of himself, and thus he needed to hire someone. In addition, the gift was going to be a surprise, so Mark had to get the workj on it done secretly.

**Maria Reynolds**[4:2] was a student at aforementioned Northridge School, and she was particularly suited for said task. Quinn did not know her, which was an advantage for keeping it secret. Alas, Maria would have to see Mark in order to make a picture of his face in her mind, and this called for trouble. As boys were not allowed to enter the campus of Northridge without the explicit permission of the overloard of that school, the meetings had to take place on the hallowed grounds of Pacific Coast Academy.

* * *

**4:1:3 Quinn Runs Into Mark And Maria**

And indeed, Quin n pensky caught them hugging like perverts, and of course she had to think that Mark was cheating on her. She asked her boyfriend, but he only invented foul ad decadent excuses of the most idiotic sort.

Quin did not want to tell Mark how upset she was really, and she fired a laser beam into the rear cheeks of Maria Reynolds. She had mounted little zappers onto her wrist watch, but those were only able to cause little damage, unless fired into the victim's eyes.

Those zappers had been developed from the beam weapons in Quinn Pensky's little battle robot that had pulverised that of Wayne Gilbert. Quinn would have worked on it, anyways, but this little version of the beam weapon was as useful as the bigger photon cannons that Quinn was also going to build into her huge mechatronic footsoldier. The weak lasers would serve the internal wireless communication between verious units of which the aggressive mega droid was going to be composed.

* * *

**4:1:4 Quinn Builds The Central Processing Unit**

The heart of the mechatronic warrior was the central processing unit, and Quinn had concetrated a huge deal on designing this vital part of the system.

Her little war robot had already been controlled by a microscopic processor, and Quuinn had been forced to build her own operational system in order to make it work: **Quinndoze QP**.[4:3] Unforyunately, Mark Del Figgalo had ruined it by pouring some Chinese sauce all over it. Quinn would have given up on restauring and upgrading Quinndoze QP, had it not been for the mechatronic project of uttermost priority.

Quinn had just purchased the necessary building blocks for the unit from Calvin Meecham, and she was now able to assemble the unit. Many of the elements were not available in the standard average shops run by Pear Electronics.

* * *

**4:1:5 Quinn Asks Lola And Zoey**

Quinn Pensky was totally desperate because of the affair between Mark Del Figgalo and Maria Reynolds. She needed even to ask her room mates for their opinion about the two of them. The nagging insecurity was a huge obstacle for her work on the central processing unit.

The less intelligent girls were not sure, as there were several kinds hugs. In addition, both of them had got problems on their own, which of course were nothing when compared to the potential danger emanating from the micro chips composed by the geek princess. Needless to say, Lola still believed in the edibility of microchips.

Gloria Victoria del la Vega y Martinez had been suggested for a rôle in an upcoming movie by Malcolm Reese, where she was supposed to portray a damsel in distress. She would have to scream like an idiot, and it was still necessary to practise a lot for that test. Unfortunately, she had learned squealing from her former room pal Nicole Bristow, a bimbo wench with a bone shattering squeal.[4:4] She desperately needed that rôle in order to become a popular futire Hollywood star. Here she envied Hollywood child star **Ashley Blake**,[4:5] the little sister of aforementioned quarterback Vincent Blake.

Zoë Brooks had just met a guy who called himself _Danny_, and whom she deemed incredibly cute.[4:6] Never before had she seen him on the campus, and that was for a very good reason:

This falsely so-called _Danny_ was not a student of Pacific Coast Academy, but really a Yerban spy. **Yerba**[4:7] was a small state in southeastern Asia, and it was ruled by some military fascist usurpator known generally as **The Chancellor**.

Quinn neither cared about Lola's Hollywood movie nor about supercute Danny whatsoever. She just needed to know about Mark's and Maria's secret relatioship in order to be able to continue her constructions calmly, and as she was still pondering the not really helpful answer of her room pals, she flunked a few manipulations of the material lying scattered in front of her eyes. This mistake wnet by unnoticed by Quinn, and even less by her dumb pals.

Zoey and Lola were still worried by Quinn's latest invention, for there had been already two many of them that had caused trouble. Thus Quinn had to admit that she was building yet another robot, just a bigger one. She needed her pals' help anyways, so she had to tell them that much at least.

Zoey wondered whether Quinn built the robot in order to hurt Maria, but the geek princess of Seattle could distract these thoughts. If at all, she wanted to destroy Wayne Gilbert, or rather his creation.

Lola wondered whether a big robot was really expensive, and Quinn was not able to deny that. That's what she needed Logan for. She hoped that, in turn for having corrected his miserable basketball performance, he would pay for the hard part of the project. Zoey assumed taht he would, but hardly without further conditions, and she was not willing to make out with Logan in order to get at his money.

Lola wondered whether the giant beasts would be useful for a movie by Malcolm Reese. She would have liked to participate in one as the female star. She imagined being abducted by one of the huge mechatronic warriors, just in order to be saved by a romantic knight on his noble steed. Of course she expected the hero to be protrayed by a good kisser, such as aforementioned Beck Oliver the hottest of all male actors of Lola's generation — or so she felt it.

In such a case, Logan would not even have needed to outsmart his dad in order to be able to pay such a sum: They would have been simply productio costs for a great movie, and those were rarely ever cheap.

* * *

**4:1:6 Possible Losses By Means Of Espionage**

During the following days, Zoë Brooks met the foreign spy, whom she did still not recognise as one — and talked to him emnthusiastically about Quinn's new big robots. Due to her own ignorance, she did not mention anything of the weapons the geek princess was up to inserting, but the so-called boyfriend imagined taht there were any. He was not a technology freak anyways.

The Chancellor had commanded him to find out about the way in which the future economic and political elite of the United States Of America was educated, as he was up to infiltrating and sabotaging that process in order to weaken the world's one and only stronest nation of all times.

But now the secret spy had got some very important message for his boss, and the latter would certainly be interested in using them to his advantage, probably in order to find a way to defy and neutralise the military technology of the United States that was installed in all those sattelite nations in the western Pacific.

Whatever the consequences to be drawn by the military dictator of Yerna would be, they were of a potentially devastating range, especially as long as the danger was not even realised, and as long as Zoë Brooks and her friends were too naïve to discover the spy as such.

* * *

**4:1:7 Mark's Portrait**

Quinn neglected her work on the mechatronic superwarriors for the time being in order to spy on Mark Del Figgalo and his — according to Quinn's fears — new girlfriend. Finally, she was sure that he was cheating on her.

In the end, Maria could not help but spoil the surprise, just in order to save her own skin. because Quinn was really infuriated.

But now Quinn was apparently happy because of the gift, even though it was no longer a surprise, but that was all exclusively her own comeuppance.

The relationship between Mark Del Figgalo and Quinn Pensky was seriously damaged, though, and this was only visible yet beneath the surface. But the problems would multiply.

* * *

**4:2 Tapping Logan's Resources**

* * *

**4:2:1 Zoey Needs Tutoring**

Usually, Zoë Brooks was one of the overall best girls in all her classes. But this year, she ran into troubles in science, because **Mrs. Bromwell**,[4:8] her teacher for chemistry, was an inept instructor and by no means in a position to explain the subjects and to motivate the pupils. She was more wiorried about Chase's hair than about her classes,a nd she also taught yoga classes at Pacific Coast Academy[4:9]without understanding anything about Indian philosophy, which was of course a shamelessly perverse abuse of the word _yoga_.

The blond Mary Sue was thus confronted with a mediocre mark, and she needed to do everything in order to get away from there, or else she would have to forget about being allowed to one of the colleges of the renowned Ivy League.

The usual alternatives were tutoring or a project for extra credits, and Bromwell deemed the latter of these a bad idea, without giving any reason. Thus Zoë Brooks was forced to go through tutoring, and this meant finding a tutor. But she thought this as the easier path, especially when compared to fighting for extra credits.

* * *

**4:2:2 Finding A Tutor**

Most people would have thought that a fledgling scientist would have been a decent tutor for pupils floundering in science classes. But this was not the case, as those geeks and nerds were socially handicapped to some huge degree, and often subject to high-functioning autism, ruling them out as tutors.

This was the case for Quinn Pensky, and also — even worse — for Wayne Gilbert. Quinn had already tried once to tutor Zoë in science, but this had been a plain catastrophe. Summing it up: In order to be able to learn something from a nerd, you need to be one on your own right. And this disqualified the blond Mary Sue by all means.

The worst possible science teacher of all those Californian nerds would have been **Joshua Nichols**, the step-brother of Drake Parker. This bigheaded Dork had tried to teach elementary school kids about advanced molecular chemistry.[4:10] Joshua Nichols was also the very reason for the conflict between Mindy Cremshaw and Drake Parker, including her hatred against his fangirls. Minsdy had been cioveting Joshua since their last middle school year, and she had even become his girlfriend, but Josh used to stick up for his step-brother, thusly denying his own more nerdy character, because he was misguided into believing that being cool meant being like Drake, whereas Mindy liked him how he was. Anyways, Josh Nichols was now rejected by all colleges he had applied for because he had failed miserably in student teaching.

Of course Quinn did not want to risk ending up in a similar dark and narrow corner because of tutoring or student teaching which were not her strength at all. She was a research and nothing else.

* * *

**4:2:3 Logan Reese And Chemistry**

Of course, Logan was still, had always been, and would always be a jerk ridiculing science and scientists, but he was one of the better kids in the classes of Mrs. Bromwell. For that reason, he was chosen by that regular teacher for science in order to tutor Zoë Brooks for a few weeks.

But Logan was truly ashamed ad embarrassed for that. The reasons for his good marks had been the fact that he had been forced by one of his grandfathers to copy a few science books. Said ancestor was a professor for advanced molecular chemistry at California Institute For Technology.

Zoë was consternated, as she had not expected him there. She had imagined Logan dumb and ignorant, and she was not wrong there, but the disgusting jerk was a better teacher than any nerd, because he did not think of himself standing above the subject and the kid to teach as standing miles below, which was the case for Quinn Pensky, Wayne Gilbert, Joshuah Nichols, and so on.

Logan forced Zoë to keep the resons why he and Zoey had to meet one another during the following days a secret, because he did not want the public tto know about his knowledge, lest he would lose his well-deserved renown as a spoiled jerk. In addition, Logan wanted Chase to believe that he and the Mary Sue were dating. This way, he wanted to use Chase's still strong crush on the charming young lady in order to rub more and more salt into his soul's wounds that already lkept on blazing like hell's fire.

* * *

**4:2:4 The Library Of Logan's Grandfather**

Finally, the cover was blown, and the proper purposes of Logan Reese's and Zoë Brooks's session were reveiled.

Quinn Pensky had heard about the old man, but she had not known about his relationship with Logan Reese. She had read the nowadays classic book about molecular chemistry, and she knew that there were many secret books by the same man. She was of course interested in accessing that lost library, as she had heard that Logan's grandfather had discovered a way to improve adamantite materials drastically. This would be useful for the construction of the exoskeleton of her mechatronic warrior.

Now there were already two reasons for Quinn to pester the jerk for.

* * *

**4:2:5 The Logaminator**

Zoë Brooks, Gloria Victoria Martinez, and Quinn Pensky actually achieved talking Logan into financing the giant war robot of Quinn Pensky, and the jerk even liked the idea of a movie centred around the superhuge mechatronic warrior with all sorts of whistles and bells included.

But there were of course a few conditions attached. At least he did not force the girls to cheerlead for him, as he had done the year before when he donated enough money for repairing **Sushi Rox**, a Japanese pub on the campus run by **Kazu Park**,[4:11] which had been accidentally set ablaze by Zoey and her friends about a year ago.[4:12] Now Logan Reese insisted not only in the unique filming rights for the actions of Quinn's giant mechatronic warrior, abut also in naming it: **Logaminator** — or this was the name of his choice.

Quinn was not very happy, because she would have preferred to name the tin beast for herself, but she needed the money and thus had to recede from her exaggerated pride. Likewise, she was now granted access to the lost library of Logan's grandfather, although Logan did not exactly know how to get into it. But this was just a matter of days to find out. Also, Quinn and her friends needed to keep the identity of Logan's grandfather secret from the greater public in order to protect Logan Reese's pride.

Logan also supplied a place for building the big tin monster, a location that was used frequently by his father to shooting movies including huge objects, such as _Kingzilla_.[4:13] In that movie, some huge biological monster was threatening a big city. Little did Quinn know that this was not much unlike what her own mechatronic warrior was able to do.

* * *

**4:2:6 Wayne Gilbert's Sponsors**

* * *

**4:2:6:1 Mrs. Lee**

So far, we have only talked about Quinn Pensky's monetary sources, and this meant essentially Logan Reese and his father's multigazillionary movie imperium.

But it was needless to say that also Wayne Gilbert had not saved all that much money, and he needed sponsors for the major expenses as well.

As Zoë Brooks and her friends were all fans of Kazu and his sushi bar, Wayne Gilbert's first thought was that of asking the competition, videlicet some powerful restaurant chain, for support.

And the biggest player in the world of pubs and restaurant in the city of Los Angeles was Chinese-themed **Wok Star**, owned by one **Mrs. Jing Lee**.[4:14] Jing Lee was upset because she had not been given a license for running a branch of Wok Star on the campus, just because Kazu was already running his pub. The Chinese lady was now out for revenge. She accpted Wayne's suggestion, but the giant robot had to be — as expeted — used for promoting Wok Star.

Jing Lee was already dreaming of the giant robot stomping Sushi Rox into pieces, allowing her to jump in and build her own pub. She also wanted her little daughter **Daisy Lee** to be allowed to ride the boilerplate warrior. This was of course a very scary thought, buy Wayne Gilbert was happy with it. Preparing the steel beast for spreading banners of Wok Star was not being a problem. And also sky-writing seemed an option, just as Dustin's miniature plane, Wayne thought about making the tin monster blow smoke through its nostrils and doing so in a controlled way would lead to readable test up in the welkin above.

* * *

**4:2:6:2 Grizzly Industries**

Jing Lee made probably tasy food, but she was no expert for technologies. And thus Wayne needed to look also for at least one techical sponsor providing some important ingredients and tools.

Zoë Brooks was cooperating with **Qualitech**,[4:15] a company selling quality scooters at Pacific Coast Academy. This was one of the leading sponsors of the whole boarding school, next to Malcolm Reese.

Thus in order to outdo Quinn Pensky's team, Wayne needed to look for yet another sponsor, and he found **Grizzly Industries**,[4:16] a vendor of many industrial supplies in southern California. The headquarters were in Los Angeles, although the production site was in Bakersfield, out in the wastelands. As Wayne was fascinated by the barren wastelands due to his aforementioned affinity with Dr. Doom, he decided immediately in favour of contacting those.

The management of qualitech had made excessively bad experiences with Quinn Pensky's inventions. They had purchased the patents for some of them, and now unhappy customers keep on complaining about the naughty side-effects of the junk. Thus Grizzly Industries decided that Quinn Pensky's team deserved the humiliation, and they supported Wayne with lots of necessary supplies.

* * *

**4:3 The Expulsion Of Vince Blake**

* * *

**4:3:1 The Mean Cheater**

Aforementioned sophomore Vincent Blake was the quarterback of the football team of Pacific Coast Academy, and as usual, most of the female students circled around him like flies around the excrements of mammals.

The school had got strict requirements for the privileged members of the great athletic teams, and this implied decent marks in the academic subjects as well. Most of the football jocks had to go through tutoring in order to upkeep that level, and this clashed badly with the necessity of additional training sessions before important football matches.

Vincent Blake solved this problem like ancient conqueror **Alexander The Great**, who had cut through the complicated Gordian knot, and that with a simple sword slash. More precisely, he simply copied the answers for upcoming tests from the teachers' desk drawers. And indeed, the teachers just left them in there for the purpose of providing those jocks with an easy way to maintain their status. Of course no teacher admitted to this, but it was clear that none of them wanted to be responsible for the failure of a big athletic star just because of the academic requirements.

* * *

**4:3:2 Caught In Flagrante Delicto**

One night, Chase Matthews had to return late to his class room for history, and their he caught Vincent Blake with his hands in the drawer of the teacher, **Mr. Toplin**.[4:17]

But it was not easy for Chase to denounce the mean cheater, as the state finals of the football season were ahead, and as this was the unique chance for the team of Pacific Coast Academy to win something great after so many years. As we remember, the opening for girls and many other decisions of the school's board made during the last years had been made in order to allow for this great moment. Without it, the sponsors would be upset and likely to withdraw from funding the school. This was especially the case for Malcolm Reese, Blix Softdrinks, and Pear Software, who were sponsoring this most elitarian prep school precisely for the purpose of promotion and publicity.

* * *

**4:3:3 Chase's Decision And Its Consequences**

Finally, Chase denounced Vince to oplin and to Dean Rivers, who had just returned to office in order to see the victory of the football team he had been looking forward to since his inauguration into this very office.

The Dean hated to suspend Vincent Blake, but he was forced to do so, because the responsibles of the competing teams had already heard at least rumours about the whole mess, and they would inform the department in Sacramento in the case of letting Vince stay.

Now the whole football squad hated Chase, with the exception of Logan Reese and Michael Barret who were ready to stick up for their bushy room mate. Logan Reese did so only hypocritically, because he envied Vince for his womanising qualities, and he wanted to get beaten up by the master jock and pitied by the girls in order to gain their attention once again.

Thus Chase, Michael, and Logan got beaten up by Vince and his henchmen, who had to be expelled instead of just suspended.

* * *

**4:3:4 (**

Ashley Looks For Vindication Ashley Blake was little amused when hearing about the expulsion of her elder brother, who was also her bodyguard.

Because of the absence of Vince, her family hired a new gorilla for Ashley. This time it was a girl: **Sarah Kyla**,[4:18] a teenager thst worked on and off as a bodyguard for famous teenagers. Due to her young age, she pass easily as a high school student at the same academy as the person she had to protect.

Ashley offered Wayne Gilbert to help him with her numerous contacts, which she had obviously had due to her fame and many fans.

Totally unpopular Vince Blake was glad and accepted this offer gratefully.

* * *

**4:4 Sara Kyla Embarrasses Quinn Pensky**

Quin n pensky noticed arriving Sarah Kyla on the campus, and she was consternated because she knew Sarah from the old times in Seattle. Sarah and Quinn had competed for a regional beauty pageant.

Quinn did not want anyone to know that she had once been a pageant girl and a majorette, until the age of seven when she decided to become a mad scientist and achieve intellectual world domination. The geek princess of Seattle considered this part of her past as one of her greatest embarrassments.

Now Quinn feared that her friends, and especially her boyfriend Mark Del Figgalo, would let her down in the case of knowing about this embarrassment. This would have destroyed both her renown and her career for good. Thus it was necessary for Quinn to effect that Sarah would not talk to anyone, especially not to Mark. This way, Quinn went paranoid, and she neglected the necessary dedication to her task of building the big mechatronic warrior. More and more mistakes were about to slip into the procedure.

Alas, Sarah would not have remembered Quinn precisely, if the paranoia of the geek princess had not betrayed the past over and over again. And while Quinn was able to keep Sarah away from Chase, Zoë, Lola, Logan, Michael, and Mark, she was not aware of Sarah's real task here at Pacific Coast Academy, and thus she did not even try to keep her away from Ashley Blake. And when Sarah finally remembered Quinn as a former adversary at a beauty pageant, the first person she told about it was Ashley Blake, and it was obvious that the latter went straight to Wayne Gilbert in order to tell him the embarrassing fact about Quinn's past.

In the end, Chase and Mark found out as well, as Sarah showed them an old video, but they did not care, and they would never have held it against Quinn in the first place.

But Wayne Gilbert was possibly a different kind of issue altogether ...

* * *

**Chapter 5 Completing The Prototypes And First Tests**

* * *

**5:1 The Legend Of Charles R. Galloway**

* * *

**5:1:1 Classes In National Economy**

**Mr. Hotchins**[5:1] was the oldest teacher at Pacific Coast Academy, and a very mean one at that. He was feared and hated by all students, because he treated them like dirt.

This year, his classes about national economy were frequented by Zoë Brooks, Chase Matthews, Michael Barret, and Logan Reese.

Zoë needed desperately a good mark in order to be considered for a place at a college of the ivy league, lest she would go totally insane.

Logan and Michael had heard rumours about the death ofd a former student of Pacific Coast Academy, a certain **Charles R. Galloway**,[5:2], who had been scared by Hotchins and fled into the wastelands of Redstone Gulch, where he was never seen again, but he was said to have died and been buried there. They liked the story, and Logan wanted to finance a field trip to the canyon in order to verify it and use it for a documentary movie.

Wayne did not know about the plans, but he would have been consternated, because Redstone Gulch hosted the fledgling prototype of his giant mechatronic warrior.

* * *

**5:1:2 The Field Trip**

Quinn Pensky and Gloria Victoria Martinez were not students of the classes of Hotchins, but they joined the trip, nevertheless. Quinn used it in order to test a few improved invention of hers, such as some multi-purpose detector or the so-called **quinnoculars**,[5:3] a set of five teescopes allowing for infravision and x-ray vision. Although Quinn had started working on these devices long ago, they turned even more vital for her construction of the huge mechatronic battle unit. Lola, on the other hand, wanted to be seen in Logan's envisioned movie about the legend of Charles Gallowy, the student that had been scared to death by Mr. Hotchins.

Zoë Brooks and Chase Matthews had joined the trip as well, but quite reluctantly.

In addition, the leader was little trustworthy, He had not got a name and was only referred to as **Lafe**.[5:4] But somehow, the gang managed to find their way to the canyon. But before finding teh tomb, they noticed a steel construct that was byond any doubt the exoskeleton of the giant mechatronic warrior of Wayne Gilbert, still under construction, but there was not much missing.

Loga Reese suggested to sabotage Wayne's work. But Quinn was not sure whether this was a good udea, because she assumed that the construction site was full of traps and triggers. The detector and the quinnocular deployed by the geek princess suggested something like that.

This caused a discussion between Chase and Michael about the sense or nonsense of the whole expedition and the giant mechatronic monsters. Zoey and Lola had to separate them. At the same time, Quinn's acribic scrutiny of the site reveiled a more shocking fact: The skeleton of the mechatronic warrior was built directly upon something that promised strongly to be the tomb of Charles R. Galloway.

Logan was consternated, for it was now impossible to examine the legendary tomb, at least as long as Wayne Gilbert's connstruct was on top of it, and moving it without his consent was potentially dangerous.

Quinn tried hard to discover the details of the built-in security mechanisms, with the purpose of being thusly able to neutralise them, but she did not get very far. All of a sudden, alert bells squealed, and then a monitor on the rear of the tin monster activated itself. The face of cackling Wayne Gilbert showed up, and he was sure that the gng of Quinn was here in order to sabotage his work.

Michael started blathering about the legend of Charles Galloway, although Logan had told hi to keep his loose mouth shut.

Wayne Gilbert cackled, believing that they wanted to fool him, but Doty Reagan, who was sitting next to Waye, knew the kegend as well. Wayne had heard about it long ago, but he had ever since forgotten about it, Yet he was consternated, because if that was true, the site was haunted by a cursed spirit, and this was no good for his project.

So, for the better or worse, the tin titan needed to move away from there. Alas, it did not have its feet attached, at least as of yet.

As Wayne Gilbert had not talked to his pals explicitly about the project, they were now surprised, and they urged Wayne to tell them the details. There was now going to be some trouble in Wayne's clique, and this would not do much good to his project.

* * *

**5:2 Moving The Colossus**

* * *

**5:2:1 Daisy And Trina: Two Star Pilots?**

Wayne Gilbert had finally added the motion mechanism to his tin warrior, and here his studies concerning the servo system of the miniature plain of Dustin Brooks paid off duly. Wayne had selected Shadow Creek as the new destination. But who would be allowed to ride this beast into safety?

According to the whishes of Jing Lee, her daughter Daisy was supposed to do so. of course she had not got enpugh experience, and this means that she needed to be instructed first, which was not easy for an elementary school girl like Daisy. In addition, Wayne Gilbert was a poor excuse of an instructor, as we have already figured earlier up the road.

In addition, there was the need of a co-pilot. Here, Wayne Gilbert should have chosen someone responsible, but he committed a big mistake. Since a few weeks after the beginning of the academic year, he had started hankering crazily after Trinidad Rebecca de la Vega y Martinez, And in order to get her to show up at the ext school ball with him, he needed to do something to help her get back at Chase for having broken his deal that they had struck in order to make Zoë Brooks jealous. Now Trina wanted to ride the giant mechatronic warrior and become famous for it as a supermodel advertising for Grizzly Industries.

So Trina Vega and Daisy Lee as the pilots of Wayne Gilbert's first mechatronic titan warrior? This did not sound like a safe concept, but the nerd was stuck with it.

* * *

**5:2:2 The Locket Of Charles Galloway**

It was not easy to get Trina and Daisy into the cockput, which was several yards above the ground level. Wayne had to hoist them upward with a tackle.

Daisy enjoyed immensly floating to the top, hanging from the ropes and hooks. Trina struggled a bit, because she was heavier than expected, but it worked out int he end. Jing lee compared her daughter to an angel fluttering across the sky.

At the same time, Logan Reese and Michael Barret were already awaiting the impeending exhumation of the remains of Charles R. Galloway. But now they had to be careful to avoid the talon-like feet of the mechatronic tyrannosaur that was set adrift by a few buttons. Needless to say, neither Trina nor Daisy understood what they were pushing.

Michael was talking to Lola on his mobile telephone. Usually, it was not possible to use these devices out in the creek, but, fortunately, Quinn Pensky had invented a way to increment the range of those devices significantly, albeit for a short time only.[5:5] Michael wondered whether the ghost would attack them, now that he had already suffered from the weight of the tin colossus. He knew that Lola had scared Lola and Nicole by feigning to talk to the ghosts of the departed, but this was all but acting, and she really ridiculed that belief. Wayne Gilbert sighed deeply. He had already informed the one and only ghost-whispering person he had been able to find by the way of an interweb search: Goth girl Jade West, the archenemy of Gloria Victoria de la Martinez y Vega. Little wonder, the Latino diva was little pleased by these news. Jade West was living in a perverted and disgusting relationship with Beck Oliver, one of the best kissers among the boys of thier generation, and definitely one that Lola would have liked to claim for herself, which would of course have been a decent match, unlike the totally blasphemic concubinacy between Jade abd Beck.

But there was no other way to beguile the raging soul of prematurely vanquished Charles R. Galloway. Otherwise the restl;ess spirit would trigger the wild hunt, and phantasmal horsemen would roam the air above the vile tomb raiders.

Making things worse: Lola and Jade would have to make the way out here to the canyon together. Lola even feared that Jade would deliberately make her get lost in the barren wastelands, as a punishment for her interest in Beck. Jade was riding a cross country scootyer, and Lola had to sit behind her arch nemesis.

Telecommunication was not only useful between Redstone Gulch and the campus of Pacific Coast Academy, but it was also vital for any mission involving the huge mechatronic warriors. Wayne was struggling hard when trying to instruct Trina and Daisy, but the dumb lasses seemed to confuse the levers and buttons left and right. Logan and Michael were in permanent life anger as long as Trina and Daisy had not figured how to make the colossus walk straightforward.

And now there was a case of perfect timing: Just when the colossus left the site, Lola and Jade arrived. The drama queen still expected Jade to try to push her into the way of the huge robot, but nothing like that happened, although the goth princess had insinuated something like that to happen during the whole trip out here. Jade had made a lot of sarcastic remarks, rubbing salt into Lola's mental wounds.

Logan had turned impatient, while Michael was totally nervous and fearsome.

Jade had got a five-pointed star tattoed onto her right arm, with a tip pointing away from her body. This was very important, as had been figured by master occultist **Alphonse Louis Constant**, better known as **Éliphas Lévi**, already more than a century ago.[5:6]

Logan started digging impatiently, and a few poverish belongings of Charles R. Galloway showed up. Among them was one interesting amulet. Logan Reese needed it as a proof for the veracity of the infamous legend of Charles R. Galloway, lest his envisioned movie would be worthless.

But Jade West was not content, because Logan's greed would inevitable upset the ghosts of this cursed place ewven more than the giant robot stomping all over it. She also recognised the amulet as one pertaining to ancient magics, and it should not be touched and abused by anyone not proficient in the arcane arts. This was the beginning of a long struggle. Jade was reminded of all the bad qualities that her shallow materialistic boyfriend Beck OLiver had, and she was finally ready to trash him and leave him to Lola. But she would not show this until weeks later.

So Logan was now forced to leave the amulet where it was, but he was up to returning to thisd place all alone, without his friends' knowledge, and thus to secure himself the victory.

At the same time, the giant ronot had reached Shadow Creek, it's assigned destination. It was there where Wayne Gilbert would provide it with the final polish, before unleashing the tin monster upon that of Quinn pensky in order to demonstrate that he is the greater genius.

* * *

**5:3 Chase's Depression**

* * *

**5:3:1 The Quiet Phase Before The Storm**

Weeks had gone by, and both Quinn and Wayne had been able to work on their respective brass monster in peace.

Quinn had finally been granted access to the secret library of Logan Reese's deceased grandfather, and she was now able to improve the materials significantly.

Trina Vega was now the one and only pilot of Wayne's machine, as Daisy seemed to have turned sick from the uneasy ride in the tin beast. But with Ashley Blake's help, Wayne Gilbert was on the way of recruiting new potential pilots.

One of Ashley's old friends was **Megan Parker**, the little sister of Drake Parker. They had met before one of Ashley's première parties in San Diego, just a dew yeasr ago. It turned out that Megan had been sort of a long term customer of Wayne Gilbert: She had ordered devices built by him in order to pull pranks on Drake and Josh, or, as she called them, _boob and boob_, who had deserved every bit of tribulation for being exorbitantly poor excuses of elder brothers.

One of Megan's favourite acquisition was a meteorological machine that allowed to turn a living room into a winter wonderland within a few minutes.[5:7] This was interesting, as Joshua's father **Walter Nichols** was the worsst weather reporter evr in the state of California. And there was some quite bad weather to predict ...

* * *

**5:3:2 The Death Of Chase's Grandmother**

Chase's grandmother died on her own birthday, which happened to agree with Chase's. This was of course not a nice thing for Chase to hear, as he had not seen her since the last summer break, and he was not even allowed to get to her funeral because it was in the middle of the academic year. Really, the administration could have granted him a pass, but they were still in a stinky mood because they had been forced to expel Vincemt Blake due to Chase's intervention, and thus to lose the state championship in football.

Chase's birthday should have been bright and sunny, both in a literal and an emotional sense, but none of them happened. The latter was thoroughly spoiled by the death of the old lady, the former by a hard rain storm that had not been predicted by Walter Nichols, the favourite weather reporter of most students at Pacific Coast Academy. His arch rival **Bruce Windchill**,[5:8] however, had predicted the deluge.

Chase Matthews was now totally depressed, even more as he had been warned: A few days ago, he had got a dream indicating the catastrophe. He was visited by a black raven, reminiscent of a poem by the masterpiece of poetry by America's greatest author of fiction: **Edgar Allan Poe** and his work _The Raven_. Michael Barret and Zoë Brooks were now forced to take care of him, and this made it impossible for them to help Quinn's project.

* * *

**5:4 Wayne Purchases Quinndoze**

The latter was severely inhibited already by the fact that the rain had also hit the construction site of Quinn's tin giant. Wayne Gilbert, however, was better off, because he had listened to the words of Bruce Windchill instead of the lies by Walter Nichols. But Wayne had got anothe rproblem not applying to Quinn, and that was a huge obstacle: He did not have Quinndoze QP, and the operationl system sold by Pear Electronics was nopthing but deprecable trash due to its closed source character which did not allow Wayne to modifye the source an redistribute the source in a way that made it appropriate for his kind of applications.

Wayne had already thought about forcing Quinn to share the secrets of Quinndoze, by the way of blackmailing her with his knowledge about her past as a pageant girl. Ashley Blake and Trina Vega had encouraged him to do that, but all of a sudden, he felt some pity for Quinn. This he had never expected. In addition, there were so many stupid secrets about his past as a failed martial art fan that he did not want to draw public attention.

But then Wayne discovered that Chase knew a lot about graphic superhero novels,[5:9] and he wanted him to participate in his discussion groups about _DC_ and _Marvel_. Unfortunately, Chase was not proud of that, and he wanted to be left in peace. So Wayne promised to let Chase in peace, but only in turn for being allowed to pyrchase a copy of Quinn's operational system. This solved the last missing piece in Wayne's chain.

Both giant mechatronic warriors were now rigged and ready, but they needed to get powered in some way. The trip from Redstone Gulch to Shadow Creek had been made possible by the usage of solar energy, but this would not work at night or in the case of a cloudy welkin.

* * *

**5:5 National Science Fare**

Melinda Crenshaw had actually nmade it: She had won her long since desired victory in the national science fair. Well, there was a trick to it. After her suspension from Belleview and her expulsion from Pacific Coast Academy, she was definitely a persona non grata at those contests. She was still allowed to local fairs, where she dominated a dumbfounded Joshua Nichols all over the place,[5:10] but the disciplinary penalties were not a good reference for a resume for the better awards.

In order to bypass this unjustifiable censorship, Mindy Crenshaw assumed once again a fake identity in order to participate in the national science fair: Her pseudonym was **Paige Howard**, and her fake residence was in Colorado. Mindy had got the address from one of Megan Parker's friends in that state, a certain **Jessica Wolf**.[5:11] The latter was more or less the relay station forwarding the correspondence between Melinda Crenshaw and the committee of the national science fair which was conducted by **Mr. Jamerson**,[5:12] a teacher for science at some school in Manhattan. The Pacific Coast Academy would have been a better place with someone like him as a teacher for physics, as opposed to the inept instructors at this one school that claimed to have the country's best teachers.

The invention, as planned, was a universal power generator and converter, inspired by the recent research of aforementioned Calvin Meecham.

Originally, Mindy's plan was that of getting invited to the campus of Pacific Coast Academy in order to present her invention. Such an invitation was inevitable, as the school was still desperately looking for a way of solving the low power supplies at certain times, a problem that had already caused breakdowns, as has been mentioned earlier up the road. The administration was desperately looking for a workaround, and Paige Howard's invetion sounded perfect. Of course Mindy could not show up on the campus in person, so she would have sent someone else, such as Megan Parker, and let her pretend to be Paige Howard.[5:13] They would stay connected via wireless telecommunication. And then the whole thing would have blown up, teleporting the campus of Pacific Coast Academy into the middle of the land of nowhere.

But now there was a significantly better plan: She was going to supply both Quinn and Firewire with the necessary technology and let then power their giant nechatronic warriors by this way. Then those brass titans would fight each other to the death and stomp all over the world of Pacific Coast Academy, especially Zoë Brooks. This way, Mindy would not even have to make her fingers dirty, the kids of the most illustrious boarding school would solvve the problem with their own hands and feet.

Cal Meecham would give the ultimate power bars unto Quinn Pensky, while Megan Parker would provide Wayne Gilbert with the same devices.

* * *

**Chapter 6 The Final Countdown**

* * *

**6:1 The Old Radio**

* * *

**6:1:1 Chase Wants A GO**

Another new academic year had started, and Chase was finally over the loss of his grandmother — was he really? The imaginary raven was still fluttering in his head like crazy. Now he had already got another problem: He coveted the new **GO**,[6:1] a portable device storing many music files, but those were way too expensive. He tried to make money by working for Kazu and his Sushi Rox, but times were getting rough even here.

Kazu's main problem was teh fact that he was unable to pay the nowadays obligatory fire insurance fees, who were unusually high as the insurance vendor had assessed the risk of fire on the campus as critical. It was now inevitable for Sushi Rox to break down because of the accumulating debts. Objective viewers estimated that Kazu would be broke within two years. But he refused to let the students know, as they had already done so much for him afer they had accidentally incinerated the previous edition of the sushi bar. The problem was even growing once Jing Lee had started advertising more for her Wok Star.

Chase had asked his grandfather, the widower of his deceased grandmother, for the money for a new GO, but the old miser had sent him just an old radio from his young days — or so believed the naïve and bushy dork. Really, Zoë had interceived the empty parcel from the old miser, and she had added an old radio from her grandmother,[6:2] in order to give Chase at least something to believe in. But Chase hated that gift, and thus Zoë better kept the true identity of the device a secret.

At this point, none of the kids knew that the radio was of an extremely rare brand, and that gatherers offered thousands of bucks for such an old device. Once they knew, they fought over the ownership. Chase wanted to buy a new GO from the bucks, and Zoë wanted to keep the family property. She was very careful to never reveal that it had been her own until she decided to stuff it into the parcel.

* * *

**6:1:2 Wayne Gilbert Uses The Device**

Fire Wire saw the radio from afar, and he knew why it was so famous. Its inventor was no other than **Nikola Tesla**, the father of modern electric engineering. Wayne knew about the legacy of Tesla, even more than Quinn did, and the latter was of course n owhere near ignorant of the history of electric engineering. Wayne's knowledge about a secret legacy. however, was inspired by his favourite graphic novels and science fiction magazines.

Yet Wayne supposed that Tesla's secret knowledge would be extremely useful for providing his robot with some ultimate polish, and that the radio set had been built as a test model for Tesla's hypotheses. Thus he bought the radio off Chase, and now it was time for the final countdown for the big showdown between two huge mechatronic warriors.

* * *

**6:2 Quinn's Battle Pilots**

* * *

**6:2:1 Chase And Logan — From The Game Sphere To The Cockpit**

Not only Dustin brooks liked to play video games, but also a lot of other guys, such as Logan Reese and Chase Matthews. Usually, they played lame gmaes such as cart races,[6:3] but they had also borrowed Dustin's _Wrenchman_ and given it a chance. Whatver the game — the bushy dork always beat the spoiled jerk by a landslide.

Logan hated this defeat, and he thus challenged Chase: He wanted to pilot Quinn Pensky's Logaminator, which was basically his property, and he wanted Chase to compete with him.

Chase was consternated, but he knew that he would have passed for good as a coward if he rejected the challenge. And the loser of the challenge would have to wear a girls' gown on the campus at plain daylight. This w=ould have been too much of an embarrassment for Chase.

* * *

**6:2:2 Michael Fights His Cowardice**

Michael was a giant coward, afraid of many things: Horses,[6:4] rollercoasters,[6:5] stick-switched cars,[6:6] wild bears,[6:7] and many more. But now he had got a crush on **Lisa Perkins**, an Afro-American fiture pop star that was already trying out for _America Sings_,[6:8] he wanted to appear all brave, for he knew preceisely that no girl would like an eternal coward.

Logan had tried to talk Michael into joining the pilot team of teh Logaminator, which of course was not easy. But Michael was ready to go through any hell for the girl girl on which he had got a perversely insane crush. In addition, Logan would tell everyone how much of a coward his pal Michael was indeed, unless he picked up the challenge.

* * *

**6:2:3 Pilot Training**

Quinn had thus completed her team of pilots: Chase Matthews, Logan Reese, and Michael Barret.

The preparation for their lethal missionw as not easy, She had built several devices to test thesuitability of the boys for the task, and even a cockpit devices were very demanding, and especially Michael had got his problems, and he almost went totally crazy due to them. But there was now no way back.

Michael was close to going insane more than once. And Chase wondered where the brakes of this dern robot were. But Quinn's flunked servomechanism had not seen any use for brakes in the first case, just as she had neglected the navigation of Dustin Brooks's miniature plane.

But Quinn managed to talk herself out of the dilemma, at least for this time, by makeing her useless boyfriend Mark Del Figgalo responsible for it.

While this was just a white lie, she was not completely wrong: Naïve Mark had been bribed by the Chancellor of Yerba and his minions into providing teh foreign military regime with the plans about Quinn Pensky's mechatronic warriors.

* * *

**6:2:4 Wayne's Pilot Trio**

Wayne was now also about to complete his pilot team.

So Daisy Lee had dropped out, but Trina was still in, even more as she wanted to destroy Chase in his cockpit, and then become famous and take over either Hollywood, or make it in the mechatronic warrior all teh way across teh continent to the Broadway in New York City.

There were still two free seats, and this time, Megan parker helped to fill them in: Her friends Wendy Gellar and **Adelaide Singer**[6:9] were ready to jump in. Their motivations were similarly weird as those of Chase Matthews and Michael Barret.

Wendy was in a stinky mood Drake parker seemed to pay too much attention to Zoë Brooks, and thus she felt neglected by her idol. She wanted to impress him now by performing a reckless activity, not taking care of any losses, even losing her own head and her bones. And this was even more remarkable as she was usually afraid of robots, especially big ones.

Adelaide had had a list of things to do until her fourteenth birthday,[6:10] and she had failed in one of them. In order to make up for that, she was challenged to ride the mechatronic monster.

* * *

**6:3 The Horror Movie From Japan And The J-Phone**

* * *

**6:3:1 A Parcel From Tokyo**

Malcolm Reese was currently about to shoot a new episode of the thrilling action movie trilogy _Kingzilla In New York, Rio, Tokyo_, once again with giant monsters.

Logan Reese received a parcel from there, containing two important things: A DVD containing the popular but illegal Japanese horror movie **Shinusha**,[6:11] and a Japanes **J-Phone**, which was a mobile telephone with particular features that were not legal in the Unites States of America.

One night, he watched _Shinusha_ together with Chase Matthews, Michael Barret, and Dustin Brooks, The latter was acting against his sister's explicit will. The movie was so terrifiying, the climax being an attack of frenzied killer ninjas that killed everything in their way with the help of chop sticks.

Dustin feigned being more terrified than he actually was, and he was even allowed to stay over night in the room of Zoey, Lola, and Quinn. This was of course strictly illegal, but not as bad as the horror movie. Really, Dustin had started feeling neglected by his elder sister, and now it was probably the right time to do something about it.

The movie made by Malcolm Reese used a giant robots built according to Quinn Pensky's specification, but made to look like the original Kingzilla. This was sup[posed to be one horror movie, and Lola would be in the next part, where the same monster would assault Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. Due to her Latino roots, Lola was particularly suited for one of the female star rôles, the bubbly and sassy teenage daughter of a leading military commander of the navy ofd Brazil.

* * *

**6:3:2 A Fake Fire Alert**

During the night, the J-phone was downloading some new movie from Japan, and this took for over an hour. But what was worse: The initial signal from Japan interferred with the fire alert system of Pacific Coast Academy, which had been turned particularly sensitive after the fiery surprise at Sushi Rox. Even Chief Becker[6:12] had been informed by the triggered procedure, and the whole brigades were already on their way.

Even worse, Dean Rivers was upset, because he had been torn out of his bed during the little hours, something he could not stand at all, even if his sociopathic wife **Tipper**[6:13] was not around. The consequences for the fake alert: The whole dormitory block of the high school boys would be grounded for the next weekend, at least in teh case of another fake fire alert during the same week.

Of course, the system would have gin off again as soon as a new movie was detected, and there were many of these, at least one each night.

Wayne Gilbert figured immediately the connection between the fake fire alert and the Japanese J-Phone. He had heard about it when tuning the telecommunication between the cockpit of his giant mechatronic warrior and the control tower, abut also the internal microtechnology of the tin monsters was affected. But as Logan was on the other side, there was little reason for Wayne to intervene and reveal the mystery. "The robots are now rigged and ready for the big combat, and if Logan screws his own engine, it's just better for us." But he was sad inside, because his favourite second cousin **Kelly Peckingpaw** from Pacific Fluff in San Diego County had advised him thrice to stop his insane rivalry with Quinn Pensky, and he had never listened. After all, he had wanted her to report about his giant mechatronic warrior, which was vastly superior to any other invention made by a teenager on the American soil.

* * *

**6:4 The Critical Situation For America**

* * *

**6:4:1 Shocking News From Japan**

The next day, half of the world was consternated. The tin Kingzilla had turned autonomous, and it was now about to destroy part of Japan unless anyone would be able to stop it. Malcolm Reese was expelled from the island state and sent back immediately to Los Angeles, but he was totally clueless.

Indeed, the Yerban military despot and his henchman had studied the log of Quinn Pensky, and they knew that the Japanese J-phones, of which there were some million in the urnban area of the Japanese main island, had rendered the robot beast uncontrollable.

And then the Chancellor himself admitted to this, and he announced that he was going to deploy the same strategy in the United States.

* * *

**6:4:2 Missy Robinson Intervenes**

Megan Parker received an urgent phone call from her friend **Melissa Robinson**,[6:14] the daughter of air force officer **Commodore Robinson**. Missy had got informations she was definitely not allowed to share, and which she should not have had access to in the first place, but the situation was thoroughly desperate because of the threat issued by the military government of Yerba. Missy urged Megan to stop the robots, bot that of Quinn and of Wayne, as they were probably sabotaged by the Chancellor of Yerba. She had employed **Nolan Byrd**,[6:15] a high school freshman from Cedar Valley that had aleready covered a huge scandal at his own school and community, in order to research and to document the details of her hypothesis, which had hitherto not been not been taken serious by anyone.

Since a few years, Missy had seen Trisha Kirby as a dangerous traitor and criminal of the worst sort who corrupts the soul of all people that are naïve enough to trust her. This time, she had been hired by the Chancellor of Yerba in order to subvert America's morals. It was easy to bribe her with her favourite meat: Bolivian bacon.[6:16] In addition, she was confronted with the prospects of becoming a real princess by marrying **Prince Gabriel**,[6:17] the heir of the throne of the little kingdom of Miranda.[6:18] The Chancellor of Yerba had been for several years the commander of the army of Miranda and real ruler of the country, making the king look like a marionette. Getting Trisha to marry Prince Gabriel would have been a huge step to the Chancellor's return to power in a country that had disposed with him by the way of a militray revolt.

And then Trisha had told Mark subtly to commit the aforementioned treasoon and show her Quinn's log concerning te giant warriors. Quinn pensky had caught Mark and Trisha in a silenrt corner, and now she had got enough of him and his attitude of keeping things secret for her, She trashed him on site, no longer trying to listen to his excuses for cheating on her.

Now it was time for Megan to act, and she hoped that Kelly Peckingpaw and Nolan Byrd would be able to convince the whole country by giving a public speech.

* * *

**6:5 The Deafeat Of The Chancellor**

* * *

**6:5:1 The Sermon**

Megan had prepared a video with long sermons by future star journbalist Nolan Btrd and Kelly Peckingpaw, and then she had snuck it into the studio of the broadcasting corporation that also broadcast the weather forecasts by Walter Nichols.

Now millions of southern Californians were waiting for the weather forecast, but it did not come. **Jane Kennedy**,[6:19] the executive producer of the channel, was thoroughly consternated. She would little later fire Walter Nichols for being a poor excuse of a weather reporter anyways. During these arguments, it was reveiled to the public that the weather forecasts were usually made a few weeks in advance before the broadcast, thusly explaining their not quite that impressivve accuracy.

But the talk of Kelly Peckingpaw and of Nolan Byrd alias Shredderman really seemed to make the difference, as will be seen later down the road. They emphasised that QuinnPensky and Wayne Gilbert needed to stop fighting and to work together in order to stop the threat posed by their tin creations, and especially the abuse of that invention by tyrants like the Chancellor of Yerba.

* * *

**6:5:2 Quinn And Wayne Make Up**

Of course Wayne Gilbert had listened to the flaming speech of his favourite second cousin, as it was shown thrice in the lounge of Brenner Hall. The same was valid for Quinn.

Even Melinda Crenshaw and Cal Meecham showed up on the campus. Yes, this was not easy for Mindy, the enfant terrible of southern California, but it had to be. She was forced to admit to her misdeed of claiming a faked identity in order to win teh contest and in order to have tried to force the students of Pacific Coast Academy to ruin their own school, as they would have probably ruined much more and made it easy for a foreign invasion.

Dustin Brooks had finally figured how to operate the skywriting mechanism, and he used the miniature plain in order to write _Quinn and Wayne: make love, not war!_ into the welkin above the camous of the most elitarian and renowned boarding school of the nation, the fanal for the next generation of the American rulers.

Wayne Gilbert and Quinn Pensky looked up to the clouds, and there they discovered those words. At first glance, they were of course consternated.

Fire Wire panted heavily. "Quinn ... I have always adored you, really." He coughed and moaned, because it was now time for him to explain all his hostilities, by betraying the fact that he had abused the science club for costume fests and role plays.

Quinn had blushed for several minutes. Forgiving Wayne was certain by absolutely no means easy for her, and replying his feelings would have seemed impossible, at least during the last three years. "OK, let's see if you have really understood the rules of that card game ..." She was not a passionate role player, but she like rules that were mathematically demanding, such as those of certain card trading games.

Wayne pulled Quinn into a kiss, and the whole trouble was forgotten. But now it was time to help the air force by funnelling their efforts and syntonising their knowledge and experiences concerning the giant mechatronic warriors.

**Stacey Dillsen**, the most unpopular class mate of Zoë Brooks and her gang, stormed teh l;ounge. "I have built a huge model of a giant war robot, using only cotton swabs and white glue. Anyone wants to see it?" She talked with a rough lispy voice. Usually, this would have scared away everyone.

But this time, Quinn and Wayne were actually interested in taking a look at the peaceful model. This would help them to explain the technology to Commodore Robinson.

The science club would now be run by both Wayne and Quinn. His other activities were delegated to another club that was frshly founded by **Mitchell Kwest**,[6:20] a teacher who would come to Pacific Coast Academy for exactly this purpose. There would also be a club for the discussion of the graphic novels of **Jake Colins**, a new author in this branch, living in nearby Lakewood, who was abvout to compete seriously with _DC_ and _Marvin_.

* * *

**6:5:3 Stars And Stripes Forever!**

Due to the informations provided by Wayne Gilbert and Quinn Pensky, Commodore Robinson was able to defeat the Yerban Fleet, and this occurred precisely on the fourth of July. The Chancellor would finally be held responsible at the international court for war criminals.

Megan Parker stood on the market place of San Diego while watching the news cast, commented by guest moderators and reporters Kelly Peckingpaw and Nolan Byrd. She was ready to celebrate Independence Day. In this moment, a miniature plane flew above her head, writing: "Megan, I love you! Dustin B." Megn coughed, but she knew that teh little brother of the blond Mary Sue was really smart and cunning. Unfortunately, she could not reply in kind right now, as she had still got an important task to fulfill. She grinned and took her oboe, playing a popular tune: _Stars And Stripes Forever!_ by immportal composer **John Philip Sousa**. The visitors and citizens of San Diego atarted singing along and marching up and down the markeplace. She thought about Dustin, about whom she had heard a lot of cool things from her friends Wendy and Ashley, roommates of Zoey's little brother, but not yet dared to believe in anything like feelings. Sweetest music filled the air:

**_"_**  
Hurrah for the flag of the free!  
May it wave as our standard forever,  
The gem of the land and the sea," The banner of the right.  
Let despots remember the day  
When our fathers with mighty endeavor  
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray  
That by their might and by their right  
It waves forever.  
**_"_**

**_THE END_**

* * *

** 1:1**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Favor Chain_!  
**1:2**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Quinn Misses The Mark_  
**1:3**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Silver Hammers_  
**1:4**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Paige At PCA_  
**1:5**:  
mentioned a few times in _Victorious_ and identified with Eastridge from _Bigtime Rush_: _Big Time Break_  
**1:6**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Robot Wars_!  
**1:7**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Lola Likes Chase_!  
**1:8**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Pilot_!  
**1:9**:  
cf. _Prank Week_  
**1:10**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Robot Wars_, with a surname being a parody on the actor's name  
**1:11**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Robot Wars_, with a surname being borrowed from the actor's part in some third-party owned production  
**1:12**:  
cameos in _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoey_ et alibi, with a surname in analogy to the same actor's rôle in _Just Jordan_.  
**1:13**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Robot Wars_  
**1:14**:  
identifies Doc Lowe from several _Ned__'__s Declassified School Survival Guide_ episodes with the same actor's guest rôle in _Drake & Josh_: _Foam Finger_  
**1:15**:  
identifies Mindy Crenshaw from _Drake & Josh_ with the same actress's guest rôle in _Zoey 101_: _Backpack_  
**1:16**:  
identifies Drake parker from _Drake & Josh_ with Drake Bell from _Zoey 101_: _Spring Fling_  
**2:1**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _New Roomies_!  
**2:2**:  
a guest character from _Drake & Josh_: _Number One Fan_ with a surname and potential borrowed from the same actor's character in third-part owned _Camp Rock_

she is also identified with an unportrayed Wendy mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _Lola Likes Chase_  
**2:3**:  
from _Zoey 101_: _Bad Girl_, identified as the model for dream figures **Samantha Puckett** from _The iCarly Show_, **Melanie Puckett** from _The iCarly Show_: _iTwins_, and **Fawn Leibowitz** from _Victorious_: _Crazy Ponnie_  
**2:4**:  
cf. _Drake & Josh_: _The Bet_!  
**2:5**:  
cf. _Drake & Josh_:  
**2:6**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Back At PCA_!  
**2:7**:  
inspired by _Ratchet And Clank_  
**2:8**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Spring Breakup_  
**2:9**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Surprise_!  
**2:10**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Quarantine_!  
**2:11**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Quinn's Alpaca_!  
**3:1**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Disc Golf_ and _Vince Is Back_!  
**3:2**:  
guest character Cal from _The iCarly Show_: _iGo Nuclear_ with a family name taken from some scientist character in some third-party owned science fiction work  
**3:3**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Zoey's Balloon_!  
**3:4**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoë_  
**3:5**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Spring Breakup_!  
**3:6**:  
guest character in _Ned__'__s Declassified School Survival Guide_: _School Plays_ with a surname taklen from same actor's rôle in third-party owned 'citetitleHigh School Musical  
**3:7**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Lola Likes Chase_!  
**3:8**:  
identified Trina Vega from _Victorious_ with Rebecca from _Zoey 101_: _Chase's Girlfriend_ et alibi  
**3:9**:  
cf._Zoey 101_: _The Play_!  
**3:10**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Back At PCA_  
**3:11**:  
the first name is only mentioned in _Zoey 101_: _Quinn's Alpaca_  
**3:12**:  
cf. _Victorious_: _Driving Tori Crazy_!  
**3:13**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _The Curse Of PCA_!  
**3:14**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoey_!  
**3:15**:  
cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Chase's Girlfriend_ et alibi  
**3:16**:  
various cameos in _Zoey 101_: _Hot Dean_ et alibi, with a surname borrowed from the same actor's character in some third-party owned production  
**3:17**:  
identifies cameo Carl from _Zoey 101_: _Hot Dean_ with Body Slam Bubba from _Unfabulous_.  
**3:18**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Hot Dean_ with a first name borrowed from the character of the same actor in some third-party owned production  
**3:19**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Spring Fling_  
**4:1**:  
cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Quinn's Date_ with a family name borrowed from the character of the same actress in some third-party owned production  
**4:2**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Quarantine_ with a family name borrowed from a character of the same actress in some third-party owned production  
**4:3**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Favor Chain_!  
**4:4**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Pilot_!  
**4:5**:  
guest in _Drake & Josh_: _Little Diva_  
**4:6**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Quarantine_  
**4:7**:  
cf. _Victorious_: _Locked Up_!  
**4:8**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _Zoe's Tutor_  
**4:9**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Michael Loves Lisa_  
**4:10**:  
cf. _Drake & Josh_: _Megan's New Teacher_!  
**4:11**:  
occasional appearance throughout _Zoey 101_, with a surname from the same actor's character in some third-party owned production  
**4:12**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _People Auction_!  
**4:13**:  
spoof off third-party owned productions _King Kong_ and _Godzilla_  
**4:14**:  
appearances in _Victorious_: _Wok Star_ et alibi, with a first name borrowed from the same actress's rôle in some thir-party owned production  
**4:15**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Jet-X_!  
**4:16**:  
cf. _Victorious_: _Tori The Zombie_  
**4:17**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _The Great Vince Blake_!  
**4:18**:  
identifies Sara from _Zoey 101_: _Silver Hammers_ with Kyla from _True Jackson VP_: _Flirting With Fame_ et alibi  
**5:1**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _The Curse Of PCA_  
**5:2**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _The Curse Of PCA_  
**5:3**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _The Curse Of PCA_  
**5:4**:  
guest in _Zoey 101_: _The Curse Of PCA_  
**5:5**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Little Beach Party_!  
**5:6**:  
cf. _Transcendental Magic_ by Éliphas Lévi!  
**5:7**:  
cf. _Drake & Josh_: _Pagind Dr. Drake_!  
**5:8**:  
various mentions throughout _Drake & Josh_  
**5:9**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Favor Chain_  
**5:10**:  
cf._Drake & Josh_: _Mindy Is Back_!  
**5:11**:  
person mentioned in _Victorious_: _Rex Dies_, identified with a Jessica mentioned in _Drake & Josh_: _Drake and Josh go Hollywood_  
**5:12**:  
guest in _True Jackson VP_: _True's New Assistant_  
**5:13**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Paige At PCA_!  
**6:1**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _The Radio_  
**6:2**:  
this identifies the radio from _Zoey 101_: _The Radio_ with that from _Zoey 101_: _New Roomies_  
**6:3**:  
cf. zo: _Michael Loves Lisa_  
**6:4**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Quinn Misses The Mark_!  
**6:5**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Rollercoaster_!  
**6:6**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Chasing Zoë_!  
**6:7**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Alone At PCA_  
**6:8**:  
cf. _The iCarly Show_: _iRock The Vote_  
**6:9**:  
identifies Addie Singer from _Unfabulous_ and the same actress's cameo Addie from _Drake & Josh_: _Honor Council_  
**6:10**:  
cf. _Unfabulous_: _The Birthday_  
**6:11**:  
cf. _Zoey 101_: _Drippin' Episode_  
**6:12**:  
cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Drippin' Episode_  
**6:13**:  
cameo in _Zoey 101_: _Quinn's Alpaca_  
**6:14**:  
guest in _The iCarly Show_: _iReunite With Missy_  
**6:15**:  
star of _Shredderman Rules!_  
**6:16**:  
cf. _iSaved Your Life_!  
**6:17**:  
guest in _True Jackson VP_: _True Royalty_  
**6:18**:  
this kingdom is fictional, but there is a Mirandese language, similar to Spanish  
**6:19**:  
guest in _Bigtime Rush_: _Big Time Live_  
**6:20**:  
thius identifies Mitchell from _True Jackson VP_: _Switcheroo_ with Mr. Kwest, a repeated cameo from _Ned__'__s Declassified School Survival Guide_


End file.
